Interwoven
by RococoSpade
Summary: Everything had gone swimmingly up until he woke up the demon and made a deal with it, he thought. Why on earth was there a demon guarding the sword, anyway? Why not an angel or something? Actually, Link had a lot of questions about that stupid temple. AU, slash. Warnings on profile
1. Falling down echoes

**"Interwoven,"**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Legend of Zelda or any characters/pieces of the franchise. I am not making any profit from writing this story. **

AN: Hello~ This is an... odd, story, and I only began WRITING it on the 26th of November... the idea was crawling around long before that, mind you. I am writing it alongside another story, so please bear with me for updates. I should be able to do relatively quick ones for this though, since the chapters are about half Static Red's lengths... hm. Well. you can all thank the lovely Trolly's Bara-chan for this, since she has been cheerfully encouraging me since I told her about the idea I'd had... and she checked over this chapter for me. Thats important too.

So, I'm dedicating this chapter to you, Trolly~! Thanks for the encouragement, and continuing to bounce ideas with me until they're a bloody mess of fun!

Summary: "The blade of heroes, and the key to unlocking the world." Someone had to have gotten something wrong there, he decided.

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><p>"Tangling and twisting… the only anomaly in the Temple of Time which truly belongs… the roots and gnarled bark of a great tree which will not fall to the flow of aging in the world outside, but twists itself up in the echoing stone sanctuary until the end of the world.<p>

The keyhole is carved into it's trunk, and the stone prison of the demon…

There is a guardian trapped in the black thorns of hell to watch over the pedestal of time and the heroines in passing, a body trapped under sable vines and branches edged with white blossoms.

And at their feet in that pedestal, the sword of time which ripped apart the world is lodged. It gleams so impossibly bright, like heavens and icy hearts made into metal. Serenity unbecoming of a weapon drifts from within it and bathes the room.

It is the blade of heroes, and the key to unlocking the world."

**- Fairytales from all over Hyrule, Vol 1.**

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><p><strong>Chapter 1: There once was an echo (of fated falling…)<strong>

(A bright blue sky was always the beginning.)

There was a temple on the edge of where they lived. It stood proud and tall but lined with leaves and ivy, and no one ever seemed to venture inside anymore. There didn't seem to be anything wrong with it, not even a nest of wolfos on the grounds or poes drifting about in the night… and yet everyone stayed far away, some unspoken promise to never venture in hanging between them.

Not that that mattered much to Link or Zelda.

It was at the edge of a cliff that overlooked the city, and the temple itself was surrounded by trees and felt… almost magical… forest fireflies floated in and out between mist and leaves, and there was such an ancient, tranquil beauty. A lonely beauty, like the moon alone in a sunset's sky.

And that… that was just begging them to explore it.

And who were they to resist the siren call of adventure?... well, they were a very influential family's scion and the son of that influential family's neighbor, who'd grown up alongside her. They probably really shouldn't have been here at all, especially Zelda. But damn it all, it was the last week of break and they were going to have fun.

"Who exactly were they designing these steps for?" Zelda asked with a laugh, helping pull him onto the topmost platform.

"Giants." Link answered bluntly, and scrambled onto the ledge beside her. The great stone façade loomed above them, half-glowing in the sunlight from between the treetops. Vines and roots crawled over the surface and ivy swathed the building. The grounds had been abandoned for years.

The Temple of Time seemed lost in its own name, trapped beyond the passage of days, hours, and minutes in their own world, a foreign unchanging piece of beauty and mystique. Of course they had to go tramping through it. Fate should understand and forgive them, and smack Fortune over the head for even considering aiming its bow and black arrow in their direction.

(Seriously, knock it off Fortune. They couldn't help themselves. )

Carefully ignoring the parts of their brains that screamed just how insane it was to plunge themselves headlong in a temple that was abandoned for centuries (those parts were screaming loud, but Zelda and Link were teenagers), one that was likely crawling with monsters and deranged hermits bent on harvesting their organs, Link and Zelda stepped forward. The stone doors creaked open unaided. The temple was calling them in, for certain this time.

So they both took a breath and stepped inside.

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><p>The blue stone that made up the main structure stretched on into darkness. In a few high corners there were cobwebs, but Link didn't hear the distinctive <em>click, click, click,<em> of skulltulas, and the place was almost free of dust. No great swarms of keese littered the ceilings in slumber, and no lumbering moblins came to lunge at them. The temple was at peace.

Supposedly, the hylians built this temple long ago with the aid of the shadow tribe. The illustrations of winged beings and weeping eyes, along with some of the triforce and the royal crest of Hyrule supported this. The temple was built so very long ago…

Demons weren't too common in their quaint city, not for a few centuries, but they had plenty of tales… Night dancers, Winged ones, Flickering shadows… if a story had been told, there was a record of it in the library's great hall. Those tomes they'd read as children inspired them now, made them curious of every secret hidden in the forgotten temple like they'd craved every bit of text in the books back then.

Owing to their rarity, demons were a… fascination. Outside legends there didn't seem to be much concrete knowledge in their sleepy home, but everyone knew what a demon was. And everyone seemed to wonder. The thoughts and theories on everything from how demons really looked, to why they disappeared from the city were as colorful as a shattered rainbow. But there was one general understanding; one should never, ever disturb a demon's rest, or worse – steal from it. The consequences were always… grim. Messy.

Looking around the clear and silent place, knowing something had to have been here… Link couldn't help but wonder if this was a resting place for such beings. Perhaps the demons had never left their part of the country but had just stolen away inside the timeless sanctuary…? A little bit of trepidation entered his heart, but he'd come here to see the temple. He doubted any demons really lived here, anyway…

Something flashed at the corner of his vision, and when he turned he saw Zelda just as she pushed open an old door… the stone of the barrier hissed against the tile, and she called him over with a grin. "It's a hallway."

Light streamed in from cuts in the stone far above them, lined with glass of all colors. The same light reflected against the white tiled floor to create a kaleidoscope that went dancing under their toes… Link watched the floor, transfixed, until they reached the end.

And then there were three doors. They tried each and found that, while the center and inner one were locked, and the one on their right wasn't. Of course, that was one they entered through first. They could pick the locks of the others later…

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><p>Link caught himself thinking of how life had gone by as they wandered through the dustless rooms.<p>

Zelda was of noble descent. The scion of a very influential family, one could very easily wonder how she'd come to befriend a country boy who's only claim to fame was that he could fit five chocolate tektites in his mouth when he was ten.

(Link hasn't checked lately to see if he's retained the skill, but he considers that he perhaps may the next time a package of the sweets comes into his possession.)

But, the answer wasn't terribly complicated. They clicked. They fulfilled certain needs in each other. Which translated from very questionable speak to 'Zelda grew up coddled and bored, and Link grew up without many friends'. Because of some overly clichéd moment of meeting and knowing at first glance that it was True Love (_I've never seen a girl punch a bigger kid in the teeth like that before!_), Link had snuck into Zelda's garden, which had a bizarrely dense number of guards. (It wasn't _well-guarded,_ mind you. There were just a whole lot of them.)

Oh, and they were all ten when this happened. It made the whole thing even better somehow, or Link thought so. He refused to tell Zelda why he was snickering then.

Well anyway, that was the first day Zelda wasn't bored to tears and forced to spend her days plucking daisies and contemplating pushing them up for lack of better things to do. And that was also the first day Link talked to someone his age who didn't try to set his butt on fire, (or become his fiancée, _whatever the heck that is, _his little ten year old self had thought). They became fast friends, even though Zelda's mom scared the crap out of their little ten year old selves five minutes into their impromptu play date (they were playing tackle-tag) by appearing out of nowhere in the garden's entrance.

And ever since then, they were inseparable. Even when Zelda went to the girl's academy. (Because Navi, being Navi, didn't see anything amoral about putting her son in a skirt and then lying to the school about it.) Yeah, They'd had a pretty awesome time growing up together.

That was all about seven years ago, they'd realized last week with something between despair and amusement. And so they'd started plotting. The rest of it might have been wasted on preparatory classes and magic training - because apparently the teachers had bought it when Link said it was an accident when he lit Mido's pants on fire (it wasn't) - and tea parties with Zelda's parents' friends, the last week of break was _theirs_. And they would seize it with gauntleted hands in the temple of time, and hell and high water before they let anyone take it. They were growing up, but damn if they wouldn't have fun beforehand. And after. And it was going to be _brilliant_.

Like a fucking supernova.

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><p>Link frowned, edging carefully along the stone ledge. It dropped off into darkness below him, and he wasn't quite ready to find out what was on the bottom.<p>

"Anything?" Zelda called down to him.

_Other than a pathway to hell?_ He shook his head, more to get his hair out of his face then to answer her, and swung down onto a platform with a doorway on it. In the center there was a painting of an eye, unfading like everything else, and more red smeared down below it; a bloody tear.

He heard the rush of rope and the rough scramble of boots against stone, and then the soft sense of wind moving at his back when Zelda landed beside him. She whistled. "Well, if the Shadow tribe didn't help in building this place…"

"Then somebody definitely went to great lengths to makes us think they did." Link murmured, carefully examining not the eye in center, but the runes which bordered the door…

A short, sharp grin – sweet triumph – slid over his face. He waved Zelda back and cast Din's fire. With a begging, crying groan (he supposed that had been there since the temple was built, because it wouldn't make sense for just the noises to age) the door creaked open. As soon as he could fit he slipped through into the darkness, blue eyes flickering around the shadow-room.

"Why, thank you." Zelda cooed as she walked to his side, glancing around the night-black casually. "I suppose I'll take this one." And chanted the spell Illumination. Her fingers glowed warm, soft white and sent the room painted yellow. Link's eyes widened at what it revealed.

A room of hourglasses and clocks… no, really an entire hall of them. They both let out gasps, coming forward to stare upward into the hundreds of faces and each grain of sand behind glass walls…

Zelda gasped again and hurried forward into the place but Link stayed frozen with his gaze on one particular hourglass. It was perched precariously on a stone shelf, smaller than the others and so unassuming… except that it was bleeding. Inside, Link watched as the tic-tic-tok of sand became the plip-plip-plop of blood falling, until that barely-there balance was lost and the hourglass fell and shattered. The spell broke. Link stumbled forward while Zelda called back to him (_'are you alright? Did you hurt yourself?'_) And he heard the sharp fast beat of her shoes against the tile floor, but he couldn't get words past the tape on his lips or the knot in his throat. On the ground where it shattered, between shards of glass, the sand spelled 'time is running out, O' -' and just as his eyes began to glaze over that last word a little gust carried the words away.

"Link! You didn't cut yourself, did you?" Zelda asked him with a voice as sharp as the broken glass, worried and sweet while she checked over his hands and arms…

"I'm fine." He muttered, still eyeing the hourglasses' remains and the innocently-gleaming sand. "It fell over by itself, Zel…"

"_Oh_, good." She let out a relived sigh, just as she finished her examination. She grinned at him like it was the best news she'd got all year. (Which it really wasn't. Many good things were happening around her. But… it was Zelda.) Link didn't smile back, just glanced down the hall. She followed his eyes. "Oh!" She clapped, and Link supposed she was remembering whatever she'd run off to see in the first place. "You need to come see this, alright?" She demanded of him, slipping around him to jog back off towards the end. With a final curious glance back at the mess of what had once been a timekeeper, he took off after her.

A spiral staircase greeted them at the other end of the newly lit room, leading upwards into the soft light of the sun… Zelda let her spell fade, so it was just rays falling into the dark that lit their way. The stone was still solid and held their weight easy, like kittens were ascending it instead of two very excitable hylians who only _acted_ like baby cats. The stairs led up to an open room, air rushing around them in gentle currents. Funnels for it were cut into the walls and made the place constantly move and swirl, dragging at their hair and clothes. Still, no monsters came to greet them.

Zelda laughed as she stepped into the currents, carelessly drug along like a flower in a stream. Link raced to catch up, almost stumbling over himself in the wind, slipping across air-smoothed tile and finally landing somewhere in the middle with a few chuckles of his own. Zelda kept dancing around the edges, and she called to him about the color of the sky… He tilted his head back and gazed at the ceiling and jolted, because that was not a color of sky but bright red tears. From the ceiling, another eye stared back at him, then two.

_The one-eyed gaze which pierces into your mind…_

_What an unsettling eye. _

But this was not the symbol of the Shadow tribe.

_No,_ Link thought, numb, as it let out a spine-chilling bellow, _this is not a painting._ Wind rushed down,and then his thoughts fled him.

_Bang slash scatter_ went the staccato of a blade, boots scrambling over tile in a symphony for survival. A talon of metal slashed out for him, begging for a taste of sweet screaming red and a bloodied hylian body. He saw his staff clatter against the claw and swing back behind him, and the monster come closer as his feet flew over stone. He jumped for it, bringing the length of his own metal staff down down _down-!_

And heard the bloody scream as his boots landed, together, on the monster's head, and heard the sickening bloody _squelch _as his blunt weapon sunk into the eye of the beast. It roared and bucked him screaming so he went crashing, like a wave that outgrew itself, into the terribly hard stone. In the hazy swimming stone-sky his senses were dancing and screaming, begging him to leap up and fight but everything refused to move and, at the corner of reality, he heard Zelda shouting and the _shinksnikt _of metal unsheathed…

And he heard the ringing crash of it meeting more.

_In little bits of color, he can see her dancing with a blade…_

_It matches beat for beat the monster, but that monster wants a meal and he is helpless because he cannot even reach himself… he is so far away…_

_And it lunges for his body, and he sees her eyes widen and her lips moved in a curse before she's screaming and a kaleidoscope of soft warm lights is coming over his vision…_

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><p>The first thing he knew was that he could see again. Brilliant, warming light… it fell down on him in long lines of white, burning against his eyes. It didn't touch him, though, he could just see it shining in from the ceiling. He pushed himself up, observing his new surroundings with an unusual, uneasy calm… Roots lined the earth-and-stone walls to his front, leading up to a great twisting tree. Its bark wove into itself in intricate curvilinear ribbons… There was a slice through the bottom center, a break in the roots which led to darkness, and it was almost shaped human, like a person in a cloak… and in the head of that proposed person there was a stone keyhole. Streams of white light broke through an unseen crack near the top of the room, and soft trails of ivy and moss touched around the ceiling and dangled from the tree like ornaments. On the floor where the light beams touched, there was a pedestal with a blade piercing the stone... And above it, there was a demon sealed into the wall.<p>

Eyes shut in a tranquil face, half the face hidden from the world… he was sleeping. Soft and peaceful now but certainly demonic – his hair shimmered white like the sunlight in the darkness, while two red wings were folded against his back and around his not-quite recumbent body. He was held to the stone and wood behind him very carefully, except his head – the only part of him allowed to hang down, his chin was tucked into his chest in slumber. His face was hidden by strips of white gauze… and his body was bound by tiers of black thorns, suspended below the keyhole in stone.

Link's heart thudded in his chest.

_I know this story_. So in the pedestal below the demon, it was the mastersword sunk into the stone… He remembered that fairytale, but not much else…

_Never wake a sleeping demon… and __**never, ever steal from it.**_

One thing burned in the front of his still-dizzy mind, though. Metal clattering against metal, boots scuffing over stone floors. Wind tearing at her hair and clothes as she tried to fight… Zelda was up against the wind weasel, alone. He would never, ever leave it that way.

So he steeled himself and stepped up into the broken beams of light, and set his hand on the hilt of the mastersword.

And the demon's red eyes cracked open.

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><p><strong>Chapter 1 end.<strong>


	2. The demon's coffin

**http:/ tvtropes. org/pmwiki/pmwiki. php/Main/WhiteHairedPrettyBoy – remove the spaces, of course. That might help you understand some things. (The main article, that is.)**

**Review responses: **

**Trolly's Bara-chan: your (lack of) maturity never ceases to amuse me~ thanks so much for everything!**

**SilverFlameoftheWindScar: you have a long penname. This amuses me. I'm glad you're hooked, and personally I think they got off… kind of easy. Think about what happens and decide if it would terrify you enough to never, ever do it again. Thanks for reviewing! **

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><p><strong>Chapter 2: The demon's coffin and the pedestal of time<strong>

His fingers had just come to grip the warm, suede-wrapped metal under the pommel when the red eyes cracked open, and simply watched him.

It was… unnerving. "I'm sorry." He found himself saying to the silent observer, before he pulled the sword free.

To his great horror, the moment the metal slipped out of the stone… the black and twisting vines which held back the demon, began to fade away and dissolve into dust. The onyx dust glittered and danced toward the ceiling and disappeared in the shattered light, until every part of what had been hidden behind their creeping thorns was revealed to him. Dark clothes and white bandages and many, many lines of red covered a lean body, one that was strong enough to rip into him with ease. The folded wings weren't so any longer, stretching out as the demon began descending on him - slow as a drifting feather. He touched the floor just as gentle and soundless, and his gaze had caught Link and made him stand still even though every thought was screaming about Zelda and _don't ever don't ever don't ever-!_

His hair shined brilliant snow-white under the sunbeams which touched on the pedestal… The red eyes narrowed, and the demon's head cocked to the side and assessed him. Link couldn't even hope to discern what he was thinking, and that worried him more than anything except the remembrance of metal claws slashing apart the world…

"And just what do you think you're doing with that?" A voice he supposed belonged to the guardian – really it had to have been; it had come from him and there was no one else - echoed around the room and smothered itself in the wood of the tree at the owner's back.

Link wanted so badly to wither under that gaze, to duck away in shame, but he didn't have the time so he forced words instead, "My friend – we were attacked by a wind weasel and it hit me, and she's back there alone-!" Link half-explained, half-pleaded trying not to edge back as the other stepped closer.

The red gaze stayed on him and the demon was soundless for three more steps, four… he came close enough to reach out and touch Link, and his wings were half extended behind him still. The broad things had something terrifying about them, something that made him look bigger and scarier than anyone Link had ever come across. They were as beautiful as they were imposing, smooth red skin stretched between bony fingers. Red skin run over with a tapestry of blue veins, painting a memory of death and despair and two thousand nights alone in darkness…

"And you think that sword can save her?" Their voice was powerful, "In your hands?" The second question just seemed to be insult to injury, to Link, but the demon sounded more blunt and curious than mocking or malicious. Link didn't flinch, even if he wanted to, but pressed his chest out and chin forward.

"Yes." He tried to channel every drop of courage and confidence he had into it. All of his resolution. _Even if I have to die. _If those thoughts would be what kept his spirit burning then he would repeat them over and over into eternity.

The demon took another step closer. Link kept a firm grip on the mastersword, watching one tan hand drift up to brush his cheek. He could see sharp nails on the fingers that touched his skin, very gentle… "Please let me go to her. You can do whatever you want to me afterwards, for waking you up, for taking this… just let me make sure she's okay." Link muttered, very aware of one certain image in the back of his mind. 'Time is running out' was written in the sand… and the unbroken hourglass was beside it, dripping blood.

_Drip drip drop drip drip drop_

The demon ran his fingers up Link's skin to the corner of his eye – he shut it on instinct – and traced the edge carefully with the pad of his index finger, like he was wiping a tear.

"What are you going to do if I refuse?"

"I'll fight you." Link murmured, staring straight into the blood-and-fire eye of the demon. "I can't leave her. We're wasting time." The eye narrowed, and Link figured the other hidden under white hair must have too. The demon leaned forward, brushing his gauze-covered nose against Link's. His eyes narrowed in what might've been glee, or pleasure, or even pain.

"Alright. Take the sword and save the princess. Then come back here to me, and accept your punishment." He rumbled casually, eyes narrowed. "Just give me a drop of your blood to swear on it."

_I don't have time for this. _With narrowed eyes and a hiss, Link brought the borrowed blade upwards and pricked his right finger, so that a drop of crimson eternity welled up. It was thrust out toward the demon like something vile, but he only watched it slip over Link's finger and go crashing toward the floor… Before their eyes it glittered and became solid, twisting and… forming a key… but that was gone in a flash of red wings and tan fingers.

"Go. Save the princess." The demon told him, and Link didn't spare a second.

He ran and ran, away from the pedestal of time, from the demon's silhouette before it…

And the demon watched with curved wings and crossed arms, as the hero ran from the center of the temple.

_This will be entertaining. _

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><p>Exploding from the rightmost doorway in that first hall, Link shot across to their door, through the room of time… and up the stairs like a bolt of light.<em> Up, up, up… <em>It hadn't seemed so long before but now it dragged into eternity, the stairs which fell into nothing… but he could just hear the rushing of wind when-! _Stop stop stop-!_ – Another spray of dancing lights swallowed him whole.

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><p>"Link… Link, come on, wake up…" he groaned, pressing his eyes further together before allowing them to open. First white, and then Zelda's face and just the light behind her… he could see the ceiling, and his friend was scratched and bruised…<p>

He lunged up, wrapping her in a hug that, according to the laws of force and momentum, ended up toppling them both over.

"What happened? The monster hit me and then you were fighting it and I was – I went to try and get help, Zelda- What happened-?" He broke off into complete incoherence, while she sighed and rubbed his back.

"Calm down." She murmured, so serene that he had to… had to try… "Tell me more slowly." She encouraged, running her hand in slow ellipses.

Link took a deep breath. "Okay. I… remember fighting the wind weasel, and it threw me so I hit the floor. Then everything got all fuzzy, but I know you started fighting it… anyway, you cast a spell or… something, I don't know, but there were a bunch of colors and I ended up in the room below this and there was… the mastersword, Zelda." He breathed. "I-its real. It's real, and there, and I _had_ it in my hands. And there was a demon and I… I made a deal with him to help you… and I was running back here, but then the colors came back and… then I woke up and you were okay and we were here." Zelda blinked up at him, and then he remembered that you really weren't supposed to pin your friends on the ground and rolled off of her.

"Alright." She said slowly, apparently measuring his words, before she sat up. "Okay… Ah, this is shorthand, alright? You got hit pretty hard, Link. When it threw you, I started fighting it instead. You were out cold."

… _what?_

"I did cast a protection charm over you… that way, I wouldn't have to worry if I threw magic at it…" she mumbled, cocking her head to the side while she remembered. "Anyway, I took care of the problem." And she smiled, sweet and reassuring.

"… O-oh. But… how? What about the demon?" Her eyes flickered back open and blinked at him in a way that honestly reminded of an owl. Though, Link didn't quite notice in his addled state, and Zelda wouldn't have appreciated the comparison anyway.

After a moment she spoke up again. "No one's been here for over a thousand years, Link. Even a demon couldn't have lived that long…" She reached over and ruffled his hair with one hand, a gentle and friendly gesture that never failed to irritate him. He swatted her hand out of habit. Zelda smiled wider, relieved and a little sheepish. "And I… well, I'm sorry. When it was attacking me, my foot hit your staff and… well, there's eyeball-gook on it now." Link blinked back at her.

"… it's okay." He said slowly. "I think that was from me."

… _she's right… it was just a dream… _he shuddered a little at the thought of making a deal like that. He knew he'd do it again, yes, but that didn't make it any less unsettling… That might've been the worst part actually…

"Still, the mastersword is supposed to be somewhere inside here, isn't it?" Zelda mused, "Perhaps you were thinking of that."

"Yeah." Link mumbled, getting to his feet and searching for his staff. Zelda was fine. Zelda was… beautiful, brilliant, fucking psycho – fending off a wind weasel on her own, what the hell was she thinking? – and now… now they needed to get out of here. They had to start getting ready for academy, anyway… His mind began to zone out of the temple to a whirl of books and lessons and screaming Mido's , and a long pile of homework…

Link grabbed his bloodied staff from the floor. The stains were gleaming violet-black, and there was a trail of that same foul blood leading to one of the wind funnels… A very smeared and thick trail…

_She didn't just chase it off. She's as good as killed it._ Link realized with a chill, just as Zelda called to him that they had to leave. She looked casual enough, but she had to have realized what she'd been doing… Link conceded to her point and tried not to look too closely at the subject. So they did leave, slinking down the stairs and crossing the clock-room, carefully scaling the rope Zelda had left back up where Link had had to edge across and swing down before. And they left the temple, still dust and monster-free, and stepped outside into the sunset.

And under the warm dying light, Link's neck burned like someone was watching him. But really, he knew no one could be there. He still looked to be certain.

* * *

><p>Arms were tight around him, trapping his own to his sides. He was in a terrible, horrible, completely inescapable situation. And it was Zelda's fault.<p>

"Link!" _That_ high voice cried, painful on his ears, "Oh, my baby… you need rest! You need milk!" Navi continued fussing, her wings buzzing through the air behind her until it glowed white. Zelda had gone to her own home across the way after a short farewell, and an extorted promise of Link taking it easy for a while.

She'd also called Navi. To, you know, make sure he kept that promise. Whether he had to be tied down or not.

It wouldn't have been the first time that happened. Link tried to remember, as his mother siphoned jar after jar of Lon lon milk down his throat, that Zelda was crazy, and it was generally a bad idea to fuck with crazy people. And _that_ was why he shouldn't seek bloody, horrible vengeance on her girly-girl soul. (Zelda? A girly-girl? He'd _definitely_ rattled his brains.) Still, as Navi pressed kisses into his forehead and more or less carried him around like a doll, it was hard not to give in. He _really_ wanted some vengeance right about now. And- how was Navi carrying him, anyway? She was a wisp, she barely existed! And yet she had him in her arms as easy as when he'd been a baby… he groaned, closing his eyes as his mother tucked him into bed.

"If it's still bad we're going to the doctor in the morning." Navi told him, and danced out after she pressed a kiss to his temple. He turned over and fell asleep.

Everything was dancing. Seven colors that flickered and faded like fairy lights before shooting apart like shattered stars falling, three triangles which flew together and became the triforce… A terribly wicked grin on tan-green skin, a woman screaming, and a world fading to darkness. The lovely red wings of the demon, dreadful and alluring, begging for him to reach out and touch…. They had stretched in front of him from the center of the dark… And then all he could see was the fire-and-blood eye, widening in glee as he fell down…

The demon stood on air and watched him with crossed arms and a sharp smile under the gauze.

And Link kept falling…

When he finally hit the bottom of space, he was really at the bottom. In a second the world turned blue and he was standing under the ocean, watching the bubbles ghost up from his lips and disappear. Light beams broke through at the very top but didn't reach him – they brushed on the half-there stairs floating in oblivion. So he started to run up them, not thinking about how he could breathe or why the water didn't drag his body, just that _he_ _had to reach the top. _

His fingers reached out for the light of the surface, miles apart then closer, closer… he felt the streams that broke through the blue dance across his skin, and every soundless contact of his feet against the glass was beautiful desperation, because he had reached it-!

And the light and water slipped through his fingers just as his eyes flickered open in his bedroom.

Cool blue bathed the place, like the pretty underwater dream. But he wasn't swimming, he wasn't anything. It had all been an illusion… he sighed, leaning his head against the cool wall. All a dream.

Even if it meant he hadn't sold his soul… He didn't think those words should be so sad.

* * *

><p>Birds were singing, the sun was shining cheerfully in the sky. The weather was destined to be mild and perfectly clear. The only news was <span>only<span> good, and Griselda didn't burn breakfast this morning, and last night their sword school had brought home a countrywide tournament's trophy.

And all of that could go straight to hell for all it mattered to Zelda at the moment. She let out a frustrated growl that was most _definitely _not ladylike, tossing another turned-over drawer behind her. A steady pile of the things had already formed, grown too large, and fallen over. A cursory violent swipe at the cabinet had her discover that that had been the last one, in fact, so the options for the location were now severely limited…

Narrowing her eyes and stomping from the bathroom, Zelda made her way down the hall. And then another one. And another… until she arrived at the one with the balcony overlooking the back of their property. On the sofa in the center of the room, facing away from her, she could see a blond head, and arms stretched across the backrest.

_The Enemy._

"Have you seen my eyeliner?" She asked suspiciously, and the blond head tilted back until she was full-in his sights. He smiled as he regarded her – slow, lazy, and with the quietly sadistic amusement only an older brother could radiate.

"Black pencils, terribly soft charcoal?" He drawled. With rage and icky-doom gnawing in her gut, Zelda hissed an affirmative. He didn't bother feigning thoughtfulness and just let his smile grow. "Hmm… Well, last I saw them; they were doing graceful pirouettes down the drain. I imagine you would have to check the waterways, now." He finished happily.

Zelda narrowed her eyes.

The sun was bright, the sky was blue, and the Lewenhart house was filled with screaming.

The world was looking pretty awesome today.

* * *

><p>Link frowned at the property across the street from his. Horrible, bloody rage-filled screaming was echoing from the house, and as he looked out his window (perhaps to glimpse what had warranted such banshee-like screams) he saw a blue motorcycle go speeding off the property. The screams became angrier.<p>

Wondering what could've gotten Zelda's panties in such a twist so early in the morning on such an obviously incredibly awesome day, Link headed downstairs.

Upon entrance to the kitchen Navi handed him a plate of what might've once been food before she'd gotten hold of it, and as he stared dejectedly at his breakfast she told him that his head had swollen to the size of a watermelon and that they were going to see the doctor in a half-hour. Link thanked his mother, told her he loved her, and dumped his breakfast on the houseplant. Woody screamed.

Finding a reasonably clean tunic and white pants – much as Link preferred the less heavy tights, he wasn't feeling up to another 'panty-shot' (as a particularly troublesome upperclassman had dubbed it) and those always seemed to happen when he went to the doctor – he dressed himself. A cap that everyone but Navi and Zelda claimed hatred of was dragged onto his head because he was too lazy to bother with his hair, (like always. Which was why he was always wearing that bloody cap), and he put on a pair of gloves because it annoyed the hell out of one of the Zora interns who liked to _touch _him at any given opportunity. The vast majority of his allotted getting ready time (nine minutes out of thirteen) were spent hunting for his boots, which had somehow found their way onto the top of the fridge, either because Navi had confused them with food and was storing them up there until she cooked them in a soup or because karma _frowned_ on him dumping her terrible cooking on Woody the abused houseplant. He was curious, but unlikely to ever discover the answer, and so decided to just be happy he found them _before_ they were served as dinner.

Then the allotted time was up (one boot still wasn't on) and he had to hop one-footed until he'd managed to work the second shoe on, because Navi had chased him from the house with high pitched chirps about their destination.

The town seemed bright and cheerful. They passed an amused gerudo named Aveil with a short exchange of hellos, but no others. One of the academy instructors was working in his yard and waved to them, and a new sensei at the swordsman's school was outside scowling at the blue sky like it had personally wronged him while a blond Link didn't recognize laughed.

The clinic was a fair distance from their home but they reached it without incident, which was almost disappointing. Link didn't usually see his sometimes-teacher looking that upset without something exploding soon afterwards, but unfortunately it seemed someone had kept him away from the fireworks store.

So they went inside without any incident, either. Link frowned, because now he knew something was _bound _to go wrong – and that was it. He knew; he was going to get _her _today. The waiting room was mostly empty; the last (and bulk) of the immunization checkups for school had been taken care of the week before, so the place was almost empty. A little sneezing fairy was across the way, and a bored fox was flicking pens at the ceiling while the man beside him insisted that '_yes, we have to be here, you CANNOT just walk around with a cracked rib-' _Link figured that guy would win out in triage. Buuuut, he didn't seem bothered either way.

Apparently the triage here took the one-to-ten scale of pain very seriously though, because Link was called back next.

Dreading his arrival in the back office – they were going to send him to her, he just knew it – he sat in the chair, fidgeting. Navi, being the lovely, caring, sadistic bitch of a mother that she was, had remained behind to comfort the young fairy. All the while sending Link knowing smiles. She was _hoping _he'd be sent to _that person_. The evil woman…

The patient chair faced away from the door, but he wasn't having any of that. In the middle of protecting his blindspot – by turning the chair around so he couldn't be snuck up on - the door itself opened. As he heard it his heart stopped, his breath caught, and he wished desperately to hide under the desk and hide. So it was a very pleasant surprise when a young blond was on the other side and walked in, instead of the queen of crazy.

The one eyebrow Link could see – the other, along with half the man's face, was hidden by long hair – rose. "Hello." He greeted pleasantly enough, stepping around Link to the terribly fun spinning stool all doctors and their stand-ins got the pleasure of using. "Was the furniture arrangement not to your liking?" He inquired curiously. A medical mask covered the lower part of his face, the kind people wore with colds or during surgeries. Link shook his head, turning the chair back again.

"Its… fine, I was just worried about someone I knew sneaking in." He settled on, and sat down.

"… well then." That tone of voice was one Link knew; it indicated that he thought better than to ask, "I can assure you that won't happen today." The young man informed him, and held out a hand. "My name is Sheik. And you are Link, yes?"

"… yeah." He shook the offered hand.

"It's nice to meet you." He was very cordial, which seemed cold in its own special way. His eye – a dark brownish red, it looked strange – glanced down towards his clipboard. "Now, it says here you were admitted for a head injury?"

Ah. The fun stuff. This guy was going to want to have him committed once they finished. "Well, I hit my head yesterday…"

* * *

><p>"- yeah. And summer ends in three days." Link finished explaining exactly why – to a plaintively disbelieving Sheik - he and Zelda had been running around the Temple of Time in the first place.<p>

"I-I see…" The man scribbled something in his notes, brow creasing in what could've been irritation or concern. "For future reference, if you are hit in the head – or _anywhere_ hard enough to black out, please put ice on it and _immediately_ come to the clinic. Don't go home and sleep on it, just… don't."

Link smiled at him. "Will do." He gave a cheerful salute, while Sheik rolled his visible eye toward the ceiling.

"Come here and let me do a scan for brain damage, at least, before I give you a potion and send you home." He mumbled, looking very much like he could spend the rest of his life without encountering someone as insane as Link again. Not likely in this town.

* * *

><p>Glass was pressed to his lips. His head tilted back, and very much against his will, a swirling frothy red mixture was poured down his throat. He groaned against the sharp metal flavor, shaking his head a little, but the stem of the bottle stayed between his teeth and clicked when it hit them. "Come on… drink it all…" the smooth voice murmured, close and commanding.<p>

So he forced himself to swallow the mouthful of poison, grimacing and licking his lips.

He treated red potion as if it were the foulest thing that could touch his lips. The intern bit back a chuckle and called for the next patient, waving Link off with a final repeated warning on what _not_ to do when one has suffered a head injury, whether it was born of an angry wind weasel or a slip in the tub. Link really, really hoped he wouldn't be coming back to see Sheik because he fell in the tub though. The guy had seemed like a nice person, if not a tad faint-hearted (in Link's mind it was perfectly normal to go tramping through abandoned temples, nearly get killed, and then go home to sleep it off. No one was sure why though, because yesterday had been the first time he'd done it.) and he hoped in the future that he would continue to be sent to Sheik instead of, say, Ruto… Actually, Link would like that a lot.

Not that that said much. Anyone beat Ruto.

* * *

><p>The rest of the day kind of blurred together in a mess of obscurity, like watercolors on a wet page. He remembered shopping, and sewing, and the tailor cursing at him, but not much else. He didn't even get another glimpse of Zelda until sundown, when she climbed in his bedroom window – his room was on the second story – after dinner. Well, she <em>said<em> she climbed through the window. Link had been downstairs eating at the time, so he hadn't seen it, and the only reason he believed her was she would have had to have passed the kitchen table to get to the stairs and even Zelda wasn't _that _good. (Yet.) But the girl was a damn ninja when she wanted to be.

At the moment said ninja was stretched out on his bed, moaning about eyeliner and her mother's insistence on a new gown. One she would be wearing to start the school year. Apparently, any points made about Zelda's tendency to ruin gowns within moments of donning them were duly ignored. All this said, Zelda gave Link a pitiful look, and he tried not to roll his eyes too obviously as he came and sat beside her. She let out another irritated moan before cuddling up to him like he was her own personal teddy bear. (He was. Link was in denial about it though.) "So how did today go for you?" She asked him, content now that she had insured that she would be getting her Link-snuggles (it is recommended to get at least one serving of these daily for healthy living), had ranted and raved to her heart's content, and had finally escaped the stress of her own house. It became very hectic around this around this time of year, between politics and academia.

"Fun stuff." Link mumbled wryly. "Ah… went to the clinic – didn't crack my skull, by the way, and there wasn't any bleeding in my brain…"

"You didn't get Ruto, I take it?" Zelda asked, lazy and content. He'd made it pretty clear by his lack of shuddering and hiding behind her.

"Ah… no. No." Link shook his head. "Anyway, the guy made me drink some red potion and let me leave. He says not to do it again."

"Hit your head?"

"Hit my head then go home and sleep on it." Link corrected absently. "Then we shopped. The tailor yelled at me. Apparently I grew half a foot and they have to sew me completely new uniform pants." He frowned. "… Zelda, do I have a big butt?"

"Now where did that come from?" His dear friend asked with the slightest edge of sleepiness creeping into her tone.

"The tailor said I have a big butt." He mumbled, feeling ridiculous and embarrassed. Which was completely normal when a young man found himself asking his best friend about his butt, he supposed.

"You have an awesome butt, Link. Perfect size." Her assurance was interrupted here by a yawn, "The tailor is mad." Content to take over his bed and use him as a cuddle-pillow, Zelda shut her eyes. Link frowned at the wall. _He_ didn't think he had a big butt. Zelda didn't seem too willing to agree or disagree though. About five minutes later, he realized he was still shooting the wall dirty looks and Zelda still wasn't talking. He glanced down; out like a light, the noble girl was. With an absent pat to her hair, he sighed and reached for the cellphone on his nightstand. The evening sky was a pretty mess of pink when he looked out the window at her grossly oversized home and dialed in a certain number.

Across the street he knew a phone was ringing. "… hello?" A voice he vaguely recognized answered on the other end, soft and curious.

"Hi. It's Link, from across the street… Is Mrs. Griselda there?" He replied mostly-cheerful in voice, eyeing the clouds far away from him but seeming so close to the treetops he used to climb…

"Is this about Zelda?" The voice suddenly gained an amused edge, and it was much less hesitant in speaking. Link allowed a wry smile to touch his lips as he watched the sun's light dwindle in their perfect dusk.

"Yes. She's kind of taken up residence over here and… well, doesn't seem to plan on leaving. Would it be all right if she just stayed over?"

"Did she fall asleep on you again?" The amused voice cut in. Link jolted, staring at the phone as though it had wronged him. Before he could respond, the voice continued, "Mom says it's fine. Just kick her out by seven, alright? Goodnight." And the line went dead. Biting his lip, Link continued to stare at the phone.

_Who the hell was that?_

* * *

><p><strong>(Chapter end)<strong>


	3. Drown the moon

This is my birthday present to me. Yay~

_Kers: I thought the stuffed fox was your birthday present to you?_

Shut up. Anyway, your stupid boyfriend stole it. So I'm making it up to myself with this.

**Review responses:**

**Trolly's Bara-chan: I'm not sure how the wind weasel would react to clocks being thrown at it, but that would certainly have been interesting… **

**SilverFlameoftheWindScar: Zelda is super lucky. She gets to cuddle with Link whenever she wants-! So not fair. **

* * *

><p>"There is no coming to consciousness without pain."<br>Carl Jung

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 3: The kind blade and the razor-smile (Drown the Moon)<strong>

Link had known for quite some time that Zelda had had an older brother. He was very elusive, and Link had never actually _seen _him in the seven years he'd known Zelda, though he had talked on the phone a few select times – Link was certain. He had never learned his name, and Zelda only grinned when Link asked her about him.

Still, as he went to sleep on his bedroom floor that night, he wondered how someone could manage to always disappear the moment he walked into a room. It just didn't seem natural. (Zelda would never tell whether or not that was what actually happened, but Link wouldn't be surprised, having met the rest of Zelda's family.)

The moon hung almost-full outside his window and reminded him, almost bitter, of the sugar white hair on the dream-conjured demon.

* * *

><p>A grinning man clothed in shadow stood atop the tower, arms crossed and looking down on him. A sword was in his hand, another – good, but not kind - shadow was at his back. A determined princess whose face his mind had filled with Zelda's was outside a ring of fire, bow in hand and arrow notched.<p>

The shadow at his back shifted, hissing in his ear _don't play his games_ and _when the time comes, will you do it?_

And he had meant to end the king.

All of them were only pawns in a chess game, but Zelda and the grinning shadow were also kings. This game's stakes were three to one, first captured the loser. What they were losing could be left to the shadow at his back, solemn and sharp and scented of blood.

That smell drifted to him again, with the sound of suffering and the taste of fire. And Link raised his sword.

Crackling brilliant light was summoned and racing towards him – the shadow at his back danced away, the terrible king laughed, and Link raised his sword and faced down fate.

And his blade tore through the black tyrant.

Fire and brimstone swallowed the fallen and sent him back as a half-there beast. There wasn't much human to begin with, and now only his baser nature had prevailed… Link saw the madness in his eyes and the curl of his lips, the shine of saliva on tusks, the feeling of death in the clench of his fingers… He wanted to tear out their throats and spray the blood over the world. Again with the shadow at his back and the king who was a princess raising her bow, Link held out his sword to the devil.

And the fairytale ended when the wicked king's corpse fell into the lava.

* * *

><p>The sun broke his trip to dreams by shining into his eyes, and he yawned into wakefulness. He was dreaming about stories again… He frowned when he realized he was in his own bed, and Zelda was nowhere to be seen.<p>

He sat up and glanced around the room, noting it was about ten in the morning, and there were no signs that Navi had been inside. Yet, Zelda was gone… A stark white note on his nightstand explained it.

_My ride came and got me. We didn't want to wake you. – Zelda_

He rolled his eyes and then his shoulders, giving a satisfied grunt when they popped. He supposed Zelda or whoever had come for her had moved him, then. More than content to just lay back and soak in the morning, he flopped backwards.

His arms stretched out to his sides and he stared at the ceiling, wondering about the line between dreams and reality and the ties between real and fantasy. Illusions of princesses danced across the backs of his eyes when he closed them, princesses with Zelda's face and laugh and the gowns that she hated, and dragons and grinning pig-devils he couldn't see and didn't know.

When he opened his eyes he saw his white-washed ceiling, perhaps the only thing in his room that seemed to resent reality. He supposes it was from all the pens he'd thrown at it.

Navi didn't come up to get him until noon, two hours later. They picked up his pants from the tailor that day.

Sunset came too quickly. He could hear keese chattering outside his window.

* * *

><p>The sun seemed too bright today, but that was probably because he was training under it. A man he vaguely remembered from the clinic was instructing their class in eastern sword techniques, demonstrating a proper block and how his blade affected his style and why it differed from their broadswords…<p>

He called Link up with a happy, almost predatory look, handed him a boken and told him they were sparring for the class.

Link gave it his all, and did pretty damn good. Right before he got knocked on his ass. Nobody in the class except Mido would spar with the swordsman afterwards. And Link let himself feel some vindictive satisfaction that Mido lost far more quickly.

When he passed by Zelda's class later, the instructor – Link _knew_ this to be the man who had had the cracked rib, because how could he forget? – had leaned out and informed him, with a secretive smile, that it was normal ("to lose to that fool."). His tail had been undulating like a bored serpent the entire time, and Link realized it was a sweep. After that Link tried to avoid him, because fox were tricky, and that was that.

He ran to the store and picked up a bag of rice, then by the ranch to talk to Malon and purchase some milk. He walked home with heavy arms and saw the blue motorcycle parked on Zelda's driveway again.

After a long, curious look from his own driveway he went inside and waited for Navi to cook dinner, and then dumped said dinner on the houseplant when it hissed at him.

Link ate a granola bar for his evening meal.

* * *

><p>He woke up before dawn again. Wandering over to the window, he glanced at the wall clock and discovered it to be four twenty. He opened the window and leant out on the sill into the crisp night air. He heard a dog barking in the distance, and a keese's fluttering wings above his head, but no people. Across the street he saw a light on, though. One of the top rooms, in the 'watchtowers', as Zelda and he had called them since they were very young, was illuminated… There were three balconies connected to each tower, but the doors didn't crack open. The lights didn't spill out into the darkness as he watched. Link stayed in the realm of cool blue and gazed out at the nocturnal world as minutes bled away. He watched the moon, ever-closer to fullness, set. He heard a wolfos howl. And then he saw rose colored light of dawn began touching the horizon, and streaks of red that filled up the sky…<p>

* * *

><p>Storm clouds rolled over them in the atmosphere that evening, but refused to yield rain. And Link heard the grumble and crack of thunder as he lay down to sleep…<p>

* * *

><p>The crimson ribbon dawn of yesterday still echoed in his mind. Zelda said the tailor would have her gown finished this evening and her mother would pick it up tomorrow… (Link knew Zelda had offered to get it, she always did, but Griselda had noticed their tendency of disappearing whenever her daughter retrieved them.) So instead of worrying about trivial things like that Zelda and he were at the sword school again, settled in the center of a large padded room. It was devoid of furniture excepting a desk at the front, where her teacher was slowly waking up. His eyes were unfocused and his body slumped, one hand on the surface of the desk to hold him up. He was staring at them like he couldn't figure out what the hell they were doing there, which he very likely couldn't. Of all the things he was (neurotic, psychopathic, moody and mean, quicker-tempered ill-mannered with too much self esteem-), he was emphatically <strong>not<strong> a morning person.

The door cracked open, and the man who'd knocked Link on his ass the other day popped his head in.

"Hey, have you-?" He began, before he caught sight of what Zelda and Link had really, really been looking at, and a sharp grin spread on his lips "Whoa. Nice clothes." He snickered, while the instructor gave him a confused stare, which gained rapid lucidity… He looked down and saw what Zelda and Link had been staring at all morning.

"... Damn it, Aris. How am I supposed to fight in this?" He grumbled, picking at the skirt he was wearing.

"Aris?" Zelda and Link echoed, while the swordsman in the doorway began to chuckle.

"My sister. She likes to go in my room and switch around my clothes." He explained, squinting at the cloth as though his gaze alone could change it to a pair of pants suitable for beating the crap out of teenage students.

"But don't you look at your clothes when you dress?" Zelda wondered. He dropped the hem of the skirt to stare at her.

"… people do that?" He managed, wide-eyed. The swordsman snorted and rolled his eyes.

"I do that."

"_You_ don't count, you narcissistic bastard…" Zelda and Link exchanged looks while the teachers argued, one thinking '_I told you so'_ and the other '_holy crap'_.

"… so… wait, _how_ do you get dressed, sensei?" Zelda cut in gently. Both men returned their stares to her. "You… don't get dressed in the dark, do you?" She joked.

"Doesn't everybody?" Her teacher returned, perfectly serious. Zelda choked.

"… well, anyway, I came in to ask you about the schedule today, but I'm guessing since hero's in here that I don't have to worry about a class today." The man settled on, too-cheerful. "And you can always fight in a skirt. Not like it's the first time." And he pulled out of the room.

"Shut up." Zelda's sensei ordered, just as the door slammed shut. His eyes slid back to them, amber and glinting with unseen calculations… They revealed his nature before anything, even his black-tipped ears and his white-tipped tails. Two swept the air behind him like writhing snakes. Link wondered why he'd only had one the other day.

"Well, you're the only ones to show up." He said in a considering voice.

A low turnout was normal – the man offered his classes for free, but most in the village felt it was better to steer clear… and most students didn't come back after the first session for a reason. "Let's begin."

* * *

><p>Link stared in a mire of seeping horror, which had slowly built up over the last two hours like an overflowing vase or a dam about to break. Zelda huffed and puffed and bowed to her teacher, a move Link quickly copied before the fox decided to initiate a round two on his head. They'd only sparred at the end, and it had only lasted minutes. And it had been the cement on Zelda's sanity's grave.<p>

_Now_, Link knew what she was thinking, taking on a wind weasel by herself. She was thinking it couldn't be any worse than facing down this man.

And Link never, ever wanted to return to this class again.

With his sharp fox-smile their sensei bowed back, amber eyes tracing with dark satisfaction the long claw marks that marred Link's face, and the tattered shoulders and waist of Zelda's shirt. "You're getting better. You didn't cry out when I cut you this time." He praised his student, and then gestured for her departure. His eyes flicked back to Link after the door had shut on Zelda's last glance. "And you have promise." He muttered, cocking his head to the side. Long strands of blue hair fell back and revealed his other eye, and the rest of his sharp smile. "Something bothering you, Link?"

Fox were tricky. Fox were tricky, because fox were smart… and they often knew more than anyone was telling.

Not trying for a smile he knew wouldn't come, Link cocked his head. "Actually, yes." He said, lifting his chin towards the teacher. "Do you think demons are still here?"

"I don't think that's really a question." The fox evaded immediately, smirking and shameless. He leaned back, hands on the desk. "Why don't you try asking something else, if its answers you're really seeking…?"

"... do you think a demon could survive, locked under the Temple of Time?" Link wondered next, and watch with some dread. Yellow eyes narrowed in something like glee.

"Three questions, Link, and only three~" The fox hissed, manic and cheerful and threatening. His sharp teeth flashed in a deadly smile. "A demon can exist anywhere, if fate decrees."

_Alright. _"I had a dream." He began quietly, and heard the creak of the door, but it really was too late to stop… "That I made a promise to one. That I would return..."

"Then you'd better hurry back to him." Link jumped, while the swordsman from earlier breezed by. He glanced back to Link with a grin full of sharp teeth he hadn't noticed before, and dark eyes that flashed red. "We aren't a patient breed." He came to stand in front of Zelda's teacher and the desk, but the fox leant around him to grin at Link - who'd stayed wide-eyed and stricken – with one last thing to say.

"You heard him." His voice was a mere hiss, but it seemed to shake the world around them. The next thing that came out was almost a purr; "Get going."

* * *

><p>So Link ran.<p>

It was the night before the final day, and he was running like death was on his heels. The ground was uneven and unforgiving – he tripped and went crashing and his knees hit the stone, painful and jarring and a little cold. He felt the blood well up under his clothes, the discomfort of grit digging into the open wounds… he forced himself up from where he'd fallen, and pressed onward. He struggled up and over the steps (_too tall, too tall_) outside the temple, hissing through his teeth when he scraped his knees further on the stone. It was smooth and hard to grip from years of rain, so he pressed back against it harder to stay attached, and it pressed the grit and sand and shards of shattered rock further into his torn body… his fingers were worn and palms slashed from the fall he'd had on his way to the steps, where the ground was littered with sharp sticks and other unfriendly floras' waste. There had been a patch of black thorns beside where he'd landed; so close to his face that he could tilt his head to the side and brush them with his nose. Somewhere in the back of his screaming mind he was glad he hadn't fallen into them, and wished his feet would carry him faster.

The still-dreaded and now hated image of the shattered hourglass had resurfaced in his thoughts, but he wasn't sure about its message anymore. Time might've run out the moment his dreams had conjured a demon, and Link had sealed a deal in his own blood.

He really should have known better.

But now he was running, sliding through the again-empty temple to the hallway with the dancing lights and rainbow glass. He went down to the very end and pressed on the inner door, and it creaked open.

First there was only the white and the black, a sharp stygian contrast that made his eyes ache. Then it faded, as he went inside and the door slammed shut behind him… he heard the lock click.

There was the tree and there was the keyhole, and there was the hole in the top of the world.

And when he looked down at the centerpiece of the room, the undersized pedestal which housed overwhelming power… he found it, the very thing he'd come looking for.

Lazy red eyes were staring at him, like they'd been there all along. The demon's cheek rested against his fist, and he was slumped over and sitting on the pedestal. In his other hand, the master sword gleamed. Beautiful and free and not as though it had been trapped in stone for a hundred years counting, Link thought.

Gauze still covered the tan face, but Link could see the shift… A slow, sharp smirk spread over the demon's lips. "I've been waiting for you."

The empty echoes fell back on him, over and over until they faded. Link felt the blood pounding in his ears as his body stepped forward without permission from his head. The demon kept smirking at him, didn't bother rising as Link came closer and closer. A languid stare was all the recognition he was given at all, until he reached the demon's feet. Only then did he rise up, so his eyes met Link's squarely. He cocked his head. His wings fanned out behind him again, mad him bigger and stronger and darker… the light above them couldn't break his shadowy veil, though it made it glow red.

Link couldn't break away from the demon's eyes, even as he felt a key being pressed into his open hand. He grasped it in numb fingers while he met the gaze of hell-fire. "… why did you let me live?" He murmured, because he knew what the key meant.

_Don't made deals with them. Don't sign away your life. Don't ever use your blood… you will die the moment… _and the text faded away.

The demon chuckled, his eyes switching downward a second.

"Look." And then he found that he could, the hellfire eye's spell broken, so Link did. And when he brought up his hand, he saw it was only half of the key. "That could've been you."

_I know. _Dread sunk deep in his belly. "Then why isn't it?" He whispered from dry lips, his blue eyes flicking back up to the demon's inferno-gaze again. _What could you want that you'd risk me escaping, instead of letting the contract kill me…?_

"You're interesting." Those two words made his dread freeze over and become something worse, something he couldn't even put a name to entirely… "I knew you'd come back. So I cut the key instead of your body."

"… how?" No more words were managed from his dry throat. The red eyes were still steady and his only anchor to conscious reality, but the demon seemed to understand what he'd been asking.

"Because I can see the truth. In the lines of your face and the words you cry…" He cocked his head, eye narrowing. "We both knew you'd come back. I was tired of waiting." With that he reached up and brushed his hand over his Link's face like he'd done days before, head still tilted as he watched Link's expression. "Don't do it again." This was rumbled in a lower voice, almost a purr. And then his eyes switched to his own fingers, where they lay against Link's cheek.

"… do what…?" Link mumbled, giving an uneasy stare to the claws brushing softly over his skin.

"What is your name?" The demon asked him suddenly, straightening his head while his eyes shot back to Link's, their softness gone and replaced by intensity.

"Link." He barely managed to utter under the burning gaze, and the wings that had been half-stretched back shot forward with a leathery _snap_ to curve around their bodies. Link's breath caught in his throat. _Trapped, _his mind was screaming at him, but he'd known that from the start.

"Link." The demon breathed it out slowly, running the sound over his tongue and testing the flavor… "Don't make me wait again." These words fell down like two-tonne stones, scattering in the space around Link's mind with horrible finality, like the door that slammed shut and the wings that snapped open.

"I won't." He muttered, and closed his eyes._ I definitely won't. How long until that doesn't matter, though?_ A weight like arms came to rest on his shoulders, and he didn't stop breathing beyond a second's hitch in his throat.

… when that didn't change soon after, then longer, he opened his eyes. Very slowly, he brought his gaze back up… the demon was staring at him still, a smile twitching the lines of his face. What form he could see beneath the gauze was sharp and satisfied, like he'd found _exactly_ what he'd been looking for when Link had stumbled in. That smile didn't bode well for Link at all.

"You never got to use the sword." The demon leant in so their cheeks brushed, and his breath tickled Link's ears. "… It seems like such a pity, doesn't it? To sell your soul and never reap the reward…" the demon chuckled low in his throat, the vibrations travelling from him to Link who shivered… "You should seize these things while you have the chance, shouldn't you?" He stepped back and let his wings flash out behind him again, a display of power and beauty and death's veil. The master sword flashed under the sun as it came to Link.

He caught the hilt in his hands and stared bewildered at the grinning demon.

"Show me something worth waiting for. Show me how you'll rip apart the world." He commanded in a hiss, and as Link brought his hands together above the pommel – determined, alive, he would _stay that way_ - the light became too bright, and the inferno of eternity's window swallowed him.

* * *

><p>His scream echoed in the space that was nowhere and in ears that were only his own. His body jerked and curled and convulsed, and the burning whiteness wouldn't leave him to rest. He could feel himself being torn apart.<p>

The beautifully horrible demon wasn't anywhere, and if Link were to look he'd realize it was because he himself was nowhere. For that moment he had ceased to exist, while his body fell to the bottom of the light's ocean.

Water was rebirth, wasn't it?

The world turned blue, and he was at the bottom of those glass stairs again. By now he knew the demon wouldn't help him.

So he ran for the top, the end to his problems or perhaps the source, and the water was real this time, rushing around him and filling his ears, fogging his eyes, stealing the breath from his lips. It was _real_, really trying to rip him away from the stairs and the person who'd waited at the top for eternity. The steps splintered when he stepped too hard but he kept running, even as the muted echo of shattered glass floated on heavy tide to his ears. He ran like the world would end if he didn't because it _would_, because he couldn't keep dreaming and without air he would **disappear** – the last cycle of the delicate stairs came into his reach, the last ten of ten thousand, the ones he'd passed in seconds which felt more like eternity. The last of them seemed to go on longest of all.

The demon was above the water's surface, his shifting image watching Link with something like curiosity, but nothing of despair touched his visage.

And Link kept running against the powerful currents which wanted to drag him away, and the broken stairs which wanted him back at the bottom of darkness. Not for that face or those eyes which watched without emotion, but to breathe again and live. He fought the pull of the waves and light came from the surface to touch his face, his lips and eyes… Death swept and slammed him and he went slipping for the edge of the stair he was on, crying and gasping – his mouth filled with water, he screamed without noise. He'd been so close and now- _I'm going to die here._

The demon's red eyes watched him.

_I'm going to die here._

But he didn't break the water. He didn't look closer at Link, falling and drowning…

_I'm going to die here. _

_I can't._ Something strange happened. His body swung itself back, forced its center of gravity through the current and over the glass again. Thrashing, grasping hands slid out of water - for just a moment breached the surface, cut through clear air. Atmosphere moved under his cold fingers, and then his body was bursting from the ocean onto wet glass and stone.

_Still alive. _He coughed and shook his head against the top. Breath still came. His scraped knees hurt, the slashes in his hands had reopened and now they bled. The red smeared over the glass like the demon's eyes, and reflected the light from the chasm of water and darkness.

Warm hands gripped his heaving shoulders and pulled him up. They were gentle and slow, and he leant into the demon's chest, too weak to stand on his own just yet. He'd been forced up too early… "You passed the test." The demon's voice murmured to him, faint and almost kind, and Link tried to lean up to hear it. "This is going to hurt…" Against his own words, the red-leather wings coiled around them in a gentle embrace of shadow. The change of light seemed to be all that was needed; Link's eyes slid shut without his consent, and he barely registered when the demon lifted him up. He was careful, almost as though he thought Link would break… "This is going to hurt a lot." He almost sounded remorseful.

Link didn't remember the rest.

* * *

><p>The pale silver light of the moon spilled over the floor, and to his half-awake eyes it was the blood. Could celestial bodies bleed, anyway…? He yawned, stretching his arms over his head.<p>

_Did I hit my head again?_ He wondered faintly, and shook it. It didn't ache. His eyes slid back open. _When did I get here? _He didn't remember returning to his room, at least. All he could recall was… dying. Water and bright light that swallowed him.

_I'm really getting tired of these strange dreams._

Closing his eyes, he summoned the memory of a rushing ocean and yawning black space… something intruded on the illusion, a noise just under the echo of his heart in his chest.

_Bump. Bump. Bump. Fwooo, fwooo, fwooo…_ something between those two.

A sound like soft wing beats… that wasn't his memory. In a second the bleary dream-world flashed into clarity and concise reality for him. The noise of wings was coming from the window, alongside a night wind whistling in. (He'd been leaving it open in the summer warmth. He wondered if that was a poor idea, now.)

Without seeing any choice in the matter, he went over (in case he should need to close it) and looked. At first his eyes caught on one of the watchtowers of Zelda's home. The top of the north-east one – the one on the far side of the house from his window - was lit up. He saw a winged figure alighting on the balcony with the open door, where warm light spilt out and into the night like tears of gold and fire. The demoness – even from here he could see she was a woman – landed silently, her wings folding behind her a second later. Link couldn't be certain of their color in the night.

She slipped inside of the doorway with a figure Link couldn't see, and in a moment the doors shut. The light no longer graced the night world, and he was left alone lingering in cool blue shadows. He heard the wing beats again, somewhere above him, but no chattering of keese.

He shut the window. As he turned back something gleamed at him from his nightstand. Curious – he didn't remember leaving anything on it this morning - he went over and lifted it, slanting it this way and that under the moonlight from the window.

Half of a faceted key.

Link stared at a moment, set it down, and tucked himself into bed with his back to the key and the window. He shut his eyes.

_Really, really tired._

* * *

><p><strong>(end chapter)<strong>

Who do you guys think the demon is, anyway? I know with the weird hints I've been dropping he could seem like Vaati or Fierce deity or even someone entirely different…


	4. The fairy, the demon, and the key

**Review replies:**

SilverFlameoftheWindScar: Yeah. I told you he gets tortured a lot. Heheh. You'll see.

Trolly's Bara-chan: sexy demons are sexy. ;D

**Other notes:** If all goes as planned, I am publishing this chapter on Wensday December 14, 2011. Right now it is 11:47 in the morning, I just got the call I have been unfortunately waiting for since I woke up; my great grandmother has passed on. So in a warped, probably horribly incorrect way, this chapter is dedicated to her. Rest in peace, Nana.

Something I should probably include but always forget: looked over by Trolly's Bara0chan, who has my undying gratitude. If it were just left to me people would be assing instead of assessing.

And a bo = a staff. Donatello the turtle uses a bo.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 4: The fairy, the demon and the key (evening star)<strong>

Birds were singing. Dawn had just crested the horizon less than a half hour ago, and sprayed the world with its beautiful light. The sky's hue was sweet baby blue; the clouds that danced over it were fluffy and white.

Link groaned and covered his head with a pillow. _What sadist decided academy had to start so early, anyway?_

He shifted and curled into a ball, while his body desperately wished for (more) sleep.

"Oh Link~" A terribly high voice rung out with horrid _glee_, and then his blanket was torn away from him.

His eyes shot open.

* * *

><p>Fast forward ten minutes. His room was wrecked to hell, a bruise was forming where his wrist had hit the wall, and he'd suffered defeat in the epic battle that had ensued between him and the tyrannical beast he called mother. A very grumpy Link was now trudging down the side of the cobblestone street to their first day of the school year with Zelda at his side. A piece of toast was trapped in his teeth. He was still pouting. Seriously, today sucked. Zelda, who had sat through the soundtrack of said epic battle at his kitchen table so they could walk to academy together, was talking and generally being a happy morning person. (Link kind of hated her right then.)<p>

… On the subject of blonds (that he may or may not kind of hate right now), Link hadn't seen hide or hair of the demon yesterday (he didn't see much of anything besides the back of his own eyelids), though he'd heard soft wing beats outside his window again when the moon was high in the sky last night. Creepy keese or creepy demons, he couldn't bother to check if he was dealing with one or the other. He'd been very tired.

"… and there's someone I want you to meet today." Zelda told him happily. "My aunt has come to visit us from Kakariko."

Link blinked at her. _Aunt, aunt…_ "… Impa?" He guessed, recalling the little he knew about the place. Little being that one, Zelda used to go there every summer as a child, and two, she had an aunt Impa who lived there. (There was also something about it being a village of the shadow tribe that had been opened to the rest of the land during a war a few years ago, but Link had been very young and didn't remember much about that, so he didn't trust his facts on the matter.)

Zelda grinned and nodded, and opened her mouth to say more, when the world decided _'why the hell not?'_ and hurled more weirdness at them.

Just then, a blond dressed in gerudo garb pelted around the corner. They didn't really look like a gerudo – their skin was a different tan, too light and not enough copper-brown, and the nose was all wrong - though before Link could catch a good glance at their eyes they had shot through the gap between he and Zelda in a blur of white cloth and desperation. A moment after, another, cackling gerudo – was that-was that Nabooru? - rounded the corner, cackling and wielding a camera as though it was a deadly serpent. Link gawked as she passed.

"… Well, that was interesting," Zelda settled on finally as her understatement of the year, watching the road behind them, where the two women had disappeared. And Link discovered that, at some point during that 'interesting' spectacle, his toast had dropped to the sidewalk. He looked down at it with a frown, toeing the edge with his boot, and heaved a morose sigh. He continued walking.

That toast would be mourned.

Zelda watched him give one last longing look back at the forsaken breakfast food. With a sympathetic and mildly concerned look of her own, she patted him on the back and began leading them towards the academy. They didn't talk the rest of the way.

* * *

><p>Today was about as dull as it could get, Link thought. And of course he'd soon regret that. Class was going through introductions when 'it' started.<p>

_White _bloomed across his eyes and invaded every nerve in his body, little snow-needles, and Link gasped.

_- screaming, screaming, the echoes reverberate and join together in a symphony – _

_The pretty red eyes that watch with neither desperation nor contempt, but a sense of pitying sorrow_

_The feeling of being ripped apart… and the light that is far too bright and stings his eyes while he begs and screams…_

And then he was back in the classroom, bent double and crying softly while he clutched at his temples. Everyone was staring at him in fear or concern; sometimes both… the teacher ordered him to go to the nurse.

To the shock of no one, Zelda was the first – and only – volunteer to take him.

It didn't happen again until he was in the back of the healer Renado's office – and that was made for certain, he'd been watched like a hawk the entire way there… he wasn't even sure how Renado had convinced Zelda to _leave_. Just a calm moment, breathe in breathe out, and then fire crawled over him and he cried out and curled over, as the world bled to blue and red…

"_I wish it didn't have to be this way." The demon's breath was beside his ear, and Link struggled against the arms holding him. He wanted so badly to rip into his own skin and tear it off… it hurt so much…_

_The demon held him tighter still, wings curving around them and blocking out the damnable light that wanted to burn him to ashes. _

"_Please take out everything on me. I'm sorry…" The mantra was repeated over and over, whispered into his ear. 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry…' and he dug his nails into the body of the demon, whatever he could reach, but he didn't rip and tear. His body kept breaking itself. _

"… nothing I can do." Renado was speaking when Link's vision swam back to reality and the nurse's office. He groaned softly and caught the man's attention, along with Zelda's – she came hurrying over, pressed a kiss to his forehead. Then he remembered – Renaldo hadn't convinced Zelda to leave. He'd convinced her to go back and give the teacher a note of absence.

"What's wrong, Link? What's happening?" She asked him with tear-bright eyes, and he wasn't really sure what to tell her.

"… It's okay." He managed, "I'll be okay." Not that she believed him. Even he didn't believe him.

* * *

><p>Renado had forced Zelda to attend her next class, assuring her that Link would be fine if he just laid down where he couldn't hurt himself. Link realized as long as he had teeth and nails or even just the will to move, he could still hurt himself, but wisely didn't point it out.<p>

"I'm going to drop off some paperwork. Please tell anyone who drops by that I've stepped out." Renado asked Link, giving him a sad smile, and stepped out the door after Link managed a nod. The door shut with a soft _thud_. He rolled over and gazed at the ceiling.

Little bursts of pain came and went through his body, reminding him of how it ripped itself apart without his knowing why.

He heard the door open and shut again. "Mr. Renado is dropping off some papers." He called, just loud enough to be heard and faint enough not to hurt his ears. Whoever was there didn't say anything back, but they didn't leave either. After a moment their shadow came over him. He glanced to the side, expecting Mido or perhaps the troublesome girl who occasionally helped the teachers, and found another surprise for the day. He jumped and let out a sharp noise (Something like _'oh-goddesses-why?'_), and sat up to press himself into the corner – and then remembered why it was a bad idea. Light shined into his eyes and made him scream, squeezing them shut and clutching his head, hiding his face beneath his fingers.

The demon made an upset noise, catching his shoulders in a gentle grip. "I figured this would happen." Link heard him mumble, sounding irritated. Then, "Please let me see your face."

_Right_. Link refused. The demon didn't do anything to fight his decision, just stood there with his wings stretched out wide behind him in the tiny office. _That can't be comfortable. Is he… is he blocking the light? _And Link continued to tremble, feeling the flashes of pain, until the demon murmured something else.

"I can make it all stop." And just as that was said, one blue eye cracked open.

"… all of it?" Link asked in a tiny voice, peering out from between his fingers. The red eyes of the demon stared back, strange and sharp and sad, now… but also determined.

"The visions, the pain, everything." He promised. "Just let me see your face."

As if on cue, another flash of agony ripped through Link. He pulled his hands – reluctant and slow – away from his head. _Anything has to be better than this. _Under the gauze the demon's lips twisted up in a relieved smile, and his gaze was softer than it had been in the temple. Red eyes searched Link's for a moment, before the demon's hands came and covered Link's eyes so he couldn't see at all, while the tips of his fingers were laid without pressure over his temples. His hands were cold…

The world faded to blue again.

"_The mastersword has chosen you." He could still hear the push and pull of water, without thinking he started to breathe with that rhythm. He was so tired… "Your path is paved by darkness and thorns. Will you still walk it?" _

_Blue eyes in a warped form watched him, pained and panting and silent. "… what will happen if I don't?"_

"_Then the world you love will fall."_

"_Then I suppose I don't have a choice." And… the pain faded to a faint blue light in darkness. The demon said his name, something Link couldn't quite hear or remember, and Link fell asleep. _

In a moment another story flashed through Link's mind, about a monster and a devil._ Well… that could work, if nothing else._ "… Kishin." Link mumbled. "That's not your name, is it?"

"… no." The demon murmured, looking perplexed (though of course Link couldn't see it, he could still hear it in his voice), "But you can call me that until the memory clears."

With a sigh Link brought one hand up, and gently coaxed the clawed one of the demon off his left eye. He met the red eye of the demon that he could see. "What did I agree to? The night before last…"

One of the things Link really did not like was not remembering things. It ranked right up there with 'people who pull on my hat' and 'people named Mido'. And, unfortunately, he found that was happening right then. He had slept all of yesterday away, he remembered that. Navi had been worried he was sick. Anything before sleeping was 'we don't like to be kept waiting' and realizing that the man in charge of eastern sword techniques and Zelda's teacher were both utterly terrifying, and an image of an incredibly smug demon. He wasn't happy about any of that.

"It can't really be called an agreement. As you said, you didn't have much choice." 'Kishin' let go of his other eye and backed up, until he was leaning against the wall and a fair distance from Link's cot. "Something bad is going to happen." And something about that phrase had Link thinking it was another understatement of the year, "You pulled the mastersword; you will be the one to banish the evil."

"That's stupid. Anyone could have pulled the sword."

"Anyone could have, but that doesn't change the fact that it was you."

* * *

><p>"<em>Kishin,"<em>

_A legendary character from the folklore of Termina. A god with white hair, tan skin and a sword with the power to rip the world in twain. He fought the incarnation of spite, Majora. _

Link thought it was a pretty fitting name for the demon that had guarded the mastersword.

The demon that had guarded the mastersword… and was now slipping out the window like a common felon, because Renado was back and they could hear him outside the door. Link snorted, rolling over so he faced the wall. At least the pain was gone.

* * *

><p>"Whirling winds and the glittering sheer… he who is left, who is not remembered here… the beautiful king with the smiling face, with the hands that will crush the broken race… his singing voice will reach high into the sky, to the careless moon who refuses to die, to the tears of the wind-dancing demon…" Sweet, high notes that were just a little off-tempo. It was a pleasant song, but something about it would always be eerie. That's what Zelda was singing when Link stumbled outside, glaring at the sun like it had wronged him. It hadn't, except by being so very bright, and really that was its job, but Link was feeling spiteful and the light was still stinging his eyes. Zelda laughed at him and finished her line, then told him to come on, because "I want you to meet Impa."<p>

Then the song was picked back up and crooned to anyone who'd listen on the semi-crowded street home. Up in the bright blue sky, Link could see the moon, waiting to rise into power again. The demon's words were echoing in his head even as Zelda narrated the tale of the great gale king and pulled him along by the arm to her home, and he knew that he'd said he would call the demon Kishin, but the name didn't seem to fit quite as well as he had thought. It didn't sound right. But it wasn't as though he could really call him anything else.

The blue motorcycle wasn't in Zelda's driveway when they walked up to the house. A young man was standing outside, though, with arms stretched towards the sky in an expression of wanting. His hair was a very pale violet, and he hid himself away in the shade. With white-as-snow skin and red eyes, Link wondered if he should really be out in the sun at all. Light sensitivity became very painful very quickly. (Something he was learning first hand, he supposed.)

"What? You came, too?" Zelda called to him, sounding half-indignant. The young man's eyes – red like cherries or a white rabbit's gaze, Link thought – flickered a moment on the moon before he turned to them, and a sharp smile slipped onto his lips.

"Of course I did." He began, in a particularly smooth and smug way that would have made less rational people want to punch him. Probably, Link didn't know. He was one of those _rational_ people. "Mother doesn't trust me home alone; she thinks I'll burn the house down." This said, his gaze switched to Link. "And… who is that?" His tone had gone predatory; somewhere between_ 'should I rip his head off?' _and '_perhaps he'd be interested in _other_ things?_'And anything rational flew out the window, because Link realized he'd just met another creepy person. So it came as no surprise that he was trying not to fidget as Zelda introduced him.

"-I've known him for years, I know I've told you stories… Link, this is Vaati." Zelda introduced with a smile, and Link was forced to shake the young man's hand. He kind of wished he hand some latex gloves to put on first, though.

He wasn't _bad_ looking, really, and Link maybe would've been attracted to him if it weren't for the sense of something being off. Like he might take the DNA Link had inadvertently left on his hand just by touching him and use it to develop some sort of horrible puppet magic or a virus that would only target Link. Something insane. Something that might end with Link in a maid costume, and he _was not _letting that happen ever again. So, whatever it was about him just put Link on edge. Probably the predatory gaze he'd been given before. He was also probably just overreacting, like Zelda said he always did. (Zelda also insisted he was her personal teddy bear, so what did she know?)

"He's my cousin."

… _you're… kidding, right?_ The cheerful look he got then said she wasn't. A half-suspicious stare was turned to Vaati, who smiled and gave a little wave.

"See something you like?" He asked Link dryly. Link shook his head.

"Sorry, can't say I do." He replied gravely. Vaati narrowed his eyes. Going on heedless, Link turned to his friend, "Zelda, I have something to take care of soon, so…"

"Oh, alright." She rolled her eyes and switched her focus to the young man who seemed to be leaning more towards ripping Link's head off, now. "Much as I enjoy your company, Vaati, where is aunty?"

"Upstairs dragging the beast from his bed." Vaati shot back immediately. As if by his words they heard the loud, angry growl of a bike, and witnessed the garage door slide open just in time for the blue bike to go shooting under instead of into the sheet of metal, and right past the three young adults as it did so. Link gave a horrified stare to the rider's back. They had been close enough to _touch. _

A woman stepped out a moment afterward and recaptured all of their attentions. She was _tall,_ with at least six inches on Link, with silver hair and red eyes like blood. Her skin was tan, like the medic named Sheik or the demon from the temple… and garbed like a warrior. She was… rather intimidating to behold. And just then, she was giving an exasperated stare to the road the bike and its rider had disappeared down.

"… And the dragon fled the castle." Zelda quipped dryly, to which Vaati snorted. "Aunt Impa! This is my friend, Link." She pulled him forward, against his wishes of course, and the red eyes flickered toward him. Link bit back a sigh and met the woman's gaze, and when she turned to face him he saw something shift on her back and realized she had… wings. Another demon. (He figured he was dealing with this rather well. He didn't even squeak this time - not that he was admitting to squeaking last time. Definitely.)

_Zelda's… aunt. _Link reminded himself, and bowed to the lady. She crossed her arms and gave him a sharp once over, though whatever she was searching out escaped his notice. "… It's good to meet you." She settled on, her too-sharp eyes meeting Link's. "We've heard many stories."

"I really hope they're not the stories she likes to tell everyone here." Link replied calmly, and added, "It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Impa."

Impa echoed something like that, still giving him the unnerving-intense stare and Link excused himself. As he left his back burnt from two red-eyed gazes. He really missed normal boring people, truly.

* * *

><p>Green. He couldn't really summon up a reason, except that the color seemed appropriate. Green was the color of the forest children; the fairies… the first wielder of the mastersword had been a fairy and appropriately garbed in the color. Green was the hero's color. That had sealed the decision for him.<p>

"_After sunset, the town will change. If you hear anything… take the key and find me."_

"_Isn't there a better way?"_

"_If you can call my name, I will come." _Of course he couldn't call his name.

Kishin knew that. Link wondered if he was being cruel to torment him, but at the same time… perhaps it was better the demon didn't appear at all. He was starting to remember the face that watched him drown without changing or reaching to aid him. Who was to say the demon would be any assistance at all?.. Link found himself thinking he might even be a liability, or an obstacle, but at once he couldn't quite imagine the demon plotting to betray him. Not while he could have just killed Link before, in the temple or the ocean or when Link was on his knees and really, literally begging for it.

He zipped up his pack; giving a last glance to the white and red box inside, the packet of matches, and the knife… he picked up his staff from beside the doorway, and tossed it out with his bag to the yard, before climbing out the window and leaping down. He rolled as he hit the grass, grabbed up his bo and his things, and continued walking through the dusk. He didn't notice the curious red eyes tracing his progress from the top of the north-east watchtower.

* * *

><p>Change.<p>

Ha. _He must come from a time where 'change' means 'go utterly fucking insane.' _Blue eyes swept over the town square while he considered this. Literal clouds (yes, _clouds_, as in masses of the little beasts so thick he couldn't see through them) of keese were flying around, swooping low and letting out threatening chitters. On the ground gohma spawn were scuttling along, occasionally hissing back at the keese, or congregating together in disturbing, hairy writhing groups not unlike a mosh pit.

Just as he was about to sigh with relief – _no one is out here_ – he heard a startled noise, one that could unfortunately _only _be made by a set of vocal cords like his own.

And sure enough when he turned to look, the medic intern who'd seen to his head the other day stood there, at the end of the street. His dark eyes were roving over the swarms of monsters, and his hand slowly was edging toward a scabbard on his back.

The monsters looked too, and then Link didn't really have a choice in the matter.

The satisfaction he felt at the crack-clatter-squelch his staff made against the gohma really shouldn't have been so strong, he supposed. Monster guts were a pain to clean off. He was careful to keep his body in front of the man, slashing away with his weapon at the descending cloud of black wings and snapping teeth.

He got through the first wave fairly neatly – one keese had slipped through his defenses to bite his shoulder, but he barely felt the wound – and was turning partway to tell the silent man, if he hadn't gone, to run, when the medic stepped forward with a ko-wakizashi in hand. His eyes were sharp and determined when he turned them on Link then, with a focused passion that reminded him of Zelda. "Go get help. I'll cover you." He said simply. When Link continued to stand and stare, trying to summon up a protest to explain just _why _he wouldn't leave someone alone with all of these monsters, Sheik canted his head.

"Go." He ordered it this time, voice barely audible over the noise of beasts but very clear in intention. "You're fast, right? You can be back before I'm dead if you hurry." Then he turned away, slashing through the first thing that leaped at them. It would probably be more of a fight to make him leave, Link realized, so he tried to remember the nearest place… he took off towards the swordsman school, clutching the half of the key on a chain to his chest.

_Kishin… should I really call him…?_

More and more monsters lined the streets, rushing him with glittering eyes and gnashing teeth. He jumped and dodged them in a horrible flurry of motion, the world more of a blur in his vision than anything else. He stumbled on the steps and nearly went crashing into the door, stumbling in after a moment of readjusting to clear sight.

The loud thumps of his boots against the wood – that he should not be wearing shoes on, some part of his mind scolded, but that part could fall over and die because he didn't have time – the panting of his breath, or just the scent of fear… one or all of these things attracted the first adult to him, and in the worst way. Link yelped and lashed out at the hands that seized him. A hand as white as death caught the wrist his staff was in and another pinned his free one to the wall. Yellow eyes gleamed when they met his. Zelda's teacher had a very calculating quality about him, like he was thinking about exactly how to rip you apart piece by piece in the least amount of…

A door slid open down the hall. "Kers? Is something… hero?"

… time.

Still panting and barely-emerging from his terrified haze, Link glanced at the voice. The red-haired swordsman stared back, hurrying over to them, and after another second Zelda's teacher let go of Link's wrists. Link peeled off the wall with according impatience, gesturing toward the door. "The whole square is covered in monsters!" He spat, to the one's amusement and the other's concern, "I was out there and- a medic is fighting them, he told me to get help, this was the first place I thought of-!"

"Slower." The fox (named… Kers, was it?) demanded, cocking his head and watching Link with another calculating gleam in his eyes, one that hinted less at death but was still as unnerving, his mind running over something Link didn't know or see. Amber was such an eerie color…

Link took a deep breath, his own eyes hardening like crystal.

A smile started to twitch on the swordsman's lips.

"There is a medic, fighting hundreds of monsters alone in town square. We have to help him, or the whole town will be overrun. We have to go. Now." _He could die. _Link said this all much more clearly, staring at the swordsman and then Kers as though daring them to protest.

"… alright." Kers slipped away into the room the swordsman had come from, carrying a lantern with a blazing flame. "You coming, Sanguine?" He called back while the sound of rummaging echoed around the otherwise-empty place.

"If only to see how it plays out." Was the casual retort, while the man gave an idle pat to the blade tied at his hip.

Link didn't pay their words anymore mind, just took off through the halls, only waiting long enough to ensure they could follow him.

…

_Squelch_ _squelch squelch._ The ground under his boots was slippery and disgusting, coated in the innards of monsters.

The only warning he got was a shout of something like glee, sharp and terrible, then when he looked up Kers had vaulted off a fence and over his head into the fray of beasts, laughing all the way. With the flames of the lantern arching around his body, he was the most terrifying beacon of hope Link had ever seen.

The swordsman was more calm, hand on the hilt of his blade as he approached the edges of the crowd, and only kicked away anything that strayed too close. His eyes slid over the square like he was studying a group of ill-behaved students or perhaps a puzzle, and Link remembered that this person was different. This person was another demon…

"That medic you mentioned isn't here." Sanguine spoke up, cat-eyes that were slowly changing red flickering to Link. "Are you going to look for him? Kers will be through here in minutes, quicker if I help…" Link nodded, sharp and determined and whole body ready to go – the swordsman smiled. "Good." He said, and in a neat move drew his blade and sliced apart a larger gohma that came at him. He moved into the swarm. Link jumped onto the concrete wall that lined the square and started running.

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><p>Despite having no real clue where he was going – he went down the road most littered with corpses – Link felt he was making good progress. He heard someone shouting and veered to the side, knocking into a rather large tektite as he did. That was another thing – the further he went – or perhaps it was the later it became – the bigger the monsters that would appear. The hard edges of the key dug into his palm as a disturbing reminder… Or maybe the jagged memento of the apocalypse, or something.<p>

_Coming_ apocalypse, Link reminded himself. It wasn't quite here yet.

_The first person to wield the mastersword, Vilink… Failed to stop the world's end, and instead ended it again…_

The tale went that Vilink had failed because of a seven year slumber. Link didn't have to sleep for seven years, and the world wasn't ending as he fell asleep. He didn't think he could even dream of sleeping.

So… he could stop this. He had to be able to stop this.

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><p><strong>(Chapter end)<strong>

I honestly felt kind of ridiculous by writing 'young adults' to describe 17-or-18 year olds. Please don't take offense if you are in that age range - I'm just used to writing teenager for that range. Its a little stupid, but.


	5. Onset of evening

Hi everyone~ just a quick note before the story; reviewing encourages me to work more. Whenever I read a review I tend to get really happy and start writing right away~

To my regular reviewers – thank you so much! You guys are awesome~

_**Review responses:**_

SilverFlameoftheWindScar: I guess so. Eventually.

Ah, Vilink… well, we'll find out, ne?

Trolly's Bara-chan: I bet you like cupcakes. *insane laughter*

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><p><em><strong>Ready? Go.<strong>_

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><p>"… he who is left, who is not remembered here…"<p>

**Chapter 5: Onset of evening (running out of time)**

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><p>Their town was old. Very, very old… among its relics were the Lewenhart house, the temple of time, and several old chapels and houses. At the far north end of town – far, far north – there was a chateau on a seaside cliff called the Tower of Winds… from where the trail was leading him, Link could see it. It towered above the landscape, lonely and echoing and dark. The violent gales that gave its name were howling, stinging his ears and sending his hair flying in every direction. His hat was caught in a stronger one and he cried out as the comb that should have kept it on his head ripped out of his hair – taking a good number of strands with it – and was carried away in the wind.<p>

When he looked over his shoulder, through the field of untamed wheat and grass, his hat was gone from sight. The only thing in the distance was the copse that edged the road from town, and a medium sized, full tree jutting from the center of the field. Keese were battered in the air above him, unable to control their paths let alone attack… ahead of him he still saw a path from someone earlier, invariably leading toward the Tower of Winds.

And as Link came closer, wondering if perhaps the medic had run inside for shelter… he knew he didn't want to go inside. Where most chateaus were known for their wine, the Winds was known for its corpses. Just beyond the gate there was a graveyard.

Little wonder no one visited it.

The storm clouds flashed and grumbled overhead. The sun was sinking into the land in the west, swallowed by the sky… and the sky itself became shadow as Link passed the gates. The stone statues leered at him, inset-garnet eyes glittering with the red of blood and suffering. Thunder rumbled and lightening cracked the sky, and Link wondered why the pristine metal gates were open. Then he looked forward.

The graveyard stretched out before the stone steps up to the veranda, decorated with… skulls and stones and all sorts of bones, bleached white and standing out in the gray-green world… Link shuddered. No book had ever mentioned that, no local folktale. Even the inner fence was made of bones. It looked rather impractical.

Link glanced up. The door was open… just a crack. He could swear he saw fire light in the upper window. The wind howled.

The gravestones loomed up around him, and the carved faces of the statues around the yard all watched him like the ones at the gate. The soil over the graves was soft and had a fresh-turned scent, along with a smell of rotting… he could see patches of grass, scattered and over-turned, but no holes. Another gale screamed at him.

Midway across the graveyard, he thought he saw someone behind the door.

_No-! _A hand coiled around his leg and ripped _down. _Link screamed.

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><p><em>What the-what is this? A redead? I've only ever hear of these in stories!<em>

He flinched, slamming his staff down and listening to the crunch of old dried bone and flesh crushed under his blow. The half-emerged corpse shrieked at him and he froze a second, staring in mute horror at the thing while it tried to claw its way up, before it opened its mouth and began toward his leg – he brought the end of the staff down _hard _between the empty sockets that it had for eyes, tore himself away from its fingers as the skull cracked inward. He brought down the metal again and watched the corpse's head cave in. It stayed in the ground.

Around him, he heard the soil shifting and the groans of dead bodies returning for the living. And the only thing alive here was him.

When he looked, the path to the door was blocked with freshly emerged bodies… and outside the gate more were pouring in.

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><p>Red eyes narrowed. Ambling corpses – there had been a battle in this field, hadn't there? The corpses of enemies were still buried in this soil… – were lining the street's edges, moving through the gate towards the hero with a chorus of unsettling moans and screeches. Still, Demon didn't move, crouched up on the wall and hidden from the view of any others who might've been watching.<p>

One of the shrieking bodies lunged – Link dealt it a sharp blow to the jaw with his staff, and Demon watched it tear off with a vague sense of approval – just as another presence made itself known. A dark mage dressed like a devil rose above the rabble and dark rolling mist and ordered the corpses to halt. He wanted Link captured…

Demon's narrowed eyes took in Link, caught in too many grasping hands, knocked out, and carried off… and he stretched his wings out behind him and began to follow, silent as the clouds above them.

The pretty hero was being carried to a dark place…

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><p>"<em>Drip drop drip drop… the singing birds they never sung, the evening rain was never done… the lonely king had lost his head, the lovely queen was halfway dead… drip drop drip drop…<em>" Somedays having a high voice paid off, he supposed. The dungeon really needed some atmosphere. The guard outside his cell shuddered as he unlocked it. Link turned a smile to him, cocking his head. "Hmm… watashi kire?" He asked, thinking it would have been better if he had a mask like the medic wore. The guard sent him an alarmed look, edging around like he'd bite. He watched their progress with something like satisfaction. Wherever he was being taken couldn't be good, so he may as well have some faintly amoral fun along the way.

The guard led him out, barely touching his shackles. He wondered how quickly he'd die if he just broke off and ran.

It turned out they weren't going far though – down a winding, featureless hall with no windows (he meant it when he said featureless) – or chain-and-lock free doors, and he didn't have a key (well, he had _that_ key, but it wasn't quite what he needed) they came to a pair of wood doors painted alizarin crimson. The ornate style reminded him of the southern provinces… The guard stepped around him, one hand still on his chains, to press open the door on the right, and then ushered him inside. A wave of heat hit him, and when his eyes cleared he groaned. "Are you _kidding _me?" He grumbled. Somehow he didn't think they were going to drown him in the bathes. Unless the one in charge wanted him drained over a tub or something, but he was pretty sure they'd need more humans for that. A lot more.

Nine pints didn't really do much.

"Disrobe. Our lord demands you be bathed before you meet him."

_You've got to be kidding…_ He grimaced.

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><p>He smelled clean. The perfume-like scent of the bathhouse flowers lingered on his skin and hair and made him sneeze, while he glared out of the cell at the guard's back. He was shivering as he left.<p>

Link's cell was actually quite clean – apparently they had foreseen a spiteful prisoner who would roll in filth after his bath (if only to dull the fragrance of the perfume, really. It was unbearable) to be a bother. Not that they had made it too far with all that bath nonsense. Four more guards had rushed in after he tossed his original escort into the water-and-flower pool he now smelled of, and had restrained him before dragging him back to his cell. The one he'd soaked aided in the endeavor (after he'd punched another guard), thus leaving Link covered in the painfully strong fragrance of whatever-the-hell-those-were.

He wasn't really happy right now. His hand came up to touch the key hidden under his tunic, and for a moment he could see the demon's faintly amused expression, mouthing _'I told you so'_ beneath his bandages. _I know, _Link grumbled back to the smug phantasm. _Believe me, next time I'll listen._

He wondered if Zelda was okay. If everyone was, really… where had those monsters even come from? It didn't make sense… the populations around the town just weren't big enough for this, and they usually stayed well away. Never swarming the streets like that.

Well, it didn't really matter at the moment. He was here, and he couldn't do anything about it. Right now he had to focus on saving himself. They'd taken his pack, but… He grinned, reaching up to scratch behind his ear.

_Not everything, _he thought, gazing on the little black pin. Time to get to work.

They would severely regret not replacing his shackles.

He pulled back from the door when he heard footsteps, lying down on his metal cot with his back to the door. They paused a moment and then continued on, and after he heard a door open and shut and the footsteps disappeared, he crept back to the metal bars. With just a quick look to make sure all was clear, he set back to work.

It went on for some time like that, tirelessly toying with the inner mechanisms of the door, hiding when he heard a guard coming. He decided, one of those times, that he needed a list of places to hide the pin. The most difficult and least pleasant, and of course most effective, would be his mouth. So long as he didn't speak or scream it could work… there was no guarantee he'd come back to the cell, so it had to be on his person somewhere. He was also worried they might try that bathing nonsense again – that would be… messy – so his clothes were out, and that left his hair and his mouth. So… yes. (Well, there was one other place, but that was stupid and dangerous and so not happening. He refused to even consider it.) One more guard passed him by, and he glanced up and down the hall again when he reached the bars. Then he slid the pin in again…

_Jingle… clank… jingle… __**click. **_The lock opened. Link smiled and let himself out of the cell, tucking the bobbypin away again.

_Damn. _He scowled. He'd found an open door in that long hallway, and now he was wandering a labyrinth… _Damn, damn, damn_… deep inside what he assumed was the abandoned chateau. He'd been circling for some time now, catching glances of other hallways from cuts in stone and little windows in locked doors. He was in what was, he assumed from the spaces he'd walked, the center of the place, and there was another door in front of him. And as he reached forward to touch the handle, it turned and swung open.

Link jumped back and scrambled for a shadow, and a white haired man walked out, passing him without a glance in a whirr of dark robes. He disappeared down the winding path Link had come from, while Link slipped through the door. A tall staircase greeted him, so very tall that when he looked up it spirallled into darkness… he began to run.

The stairs continued into the darkness, dizzying and malignant and somehow wonderful, if only because he knew he was escaping. He could swear he saw the gleam of stars after hundreds of stairs, and when he looked down he saw the place where he'd begun his journey had faded from sight. He looked back up and kept running.

A hundred steps more and he found himself at a door, the only visible thing besides the stairs at his feet… It stood out against the darkness, a moon painted on its center. He grabbed the handle and pulled it open. And found himself in another locked room…

The moon-door banged shut behind him.

Just as he was eyeing the lock, and reaching for his pin, he heard a soft laugh. Red eyes stared back at him when he looked up. The demon jingled a ring of keys at him, before picking one and slipping it into the lock on the door.

"This is a learning opportunity," He told Link with a grin in his voice and hellfire eyes agleam. "So pay attention."

In his hand, there was a sword… Link had seen the gleam of steel, and in a moment the demon had a hand on his collarbone, lingering near the key. "Give it to me." He murmured, canting his head, "And you will be given the blade."

Link's fingers, almost trembling, brushed past the demon's to dip into his tunic. He caught the chain of the key and pulled it up, off of his neck, before handing it to the guardian… and after it was taken, the hilt of the mastersword was pressed into the hand at his side.

"Remember that this will hurt." The demon reminded him in a softer tone, and stepped back. He pulled out the second half of the glittering blood key and slid the pieces together. Link felt a scream rip itself out of his throat.

The sword hummed between his fingers, alive with energy and so hot, too hot against his skin-! He threw his head back and gave another breathy shriek as his body changed and rearranged itself, the structure of his being warping… he coughed and dropped to his knees, new weight forcing him down while the mastersword scalded his skin, his fingers refusing to release it. His hair fell over his shoulders and touched the floor.

_Hell… did that get longer, too…? _He wondered while he knelt there panting, in some strange place where he could still feel the pain, but wasn't really attached to it. His body continued changing at the sword's leisure until the last of the pain faded, but he didn't come back to reality until the demon coughed. Link pressed upward until he was on his feet again, swaying uncertainly. His hair fell past his hips. "What the hell…?" He muttered, staring down at his chest in utter bewilderment. His voice came out much higher than before. "Why are- how am I supposed to _balance_ with these?" He demanded, glaring up at the demon in disbelief. His tunic was a _lot _tighter now... Kishin shrugged.

"Most women seem to manage." He commented, glancing over Link casually. Link scowled at him.

"… alright. Learning experience." Link muttered, bringing up a hand to gesture. "Why, precisely, did I turn into a girl the moment the mastersword woke up?" The demon shrugged again.

"I guess it just liked you better as a female." He said slowly, sounding far too amused for the situation. "Now, we have work to do, so please acquaint yourself with your new features quickly." Link hissed at him, one eye twitching, before turning and stomping off. Her footfalls faded down the hall and an infinitely amused demon followed after her, silent and sharp.

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><p><strong>(Chapter end)<strong>

**Remember when I said it would be an odd story?**

**Notes: Watashi kire - do you think I'm pretty? = it has to do with the slit-faced lady... its a japanese urban legend. A woman in a doctor's mask asks people that, if they say no she kills them. If they say yes, she takes off the mask to reveal her face is slashed ear to ear, and she'll ask again. There are several variations, I would recomment checking out the wikipedia page. Kire also means cut, and cane mean 'I will/am going to cut you'. **


	6. The Sword and the Wind

**Whoaaaaa this is later than expected. *blinks* it's been almost two weeks! "One day short of two weeks." Shut your face, Demon. ANYWAY. I hope no one kills me after this… **

**(To people who would kill me for this: I just hung up on you. Yes, I am aware of my imminent demise at your klutzy hands.)**

**Review responses:**

**Ray-Kat-Hollows: Hm. I hope you continue to enjoy it. (That other stuff is a secret~)**

**SilverFlameoftheWindScar: Did that shock you? Hehehe… Uh, as a rule I don't really put things like that in the summary unless they're the entire thing the story revolves around. So… yeah. I don't really like a lot of gender bends, because it seems like they're just so the author can do a slash pairing without the slash, and they tend to have really… unfortunate implications towards females (since it seems most stories are about a male turning female). I'm hoping you'll give this a chance, at least until the end of the chapter. **

**Trolly's Bara-chan: You know, I would really like Kishin to get off my back about this whole thing *huffs and smiles* You know what I'm talking about. **

**CottonCandyHaze: muhahaha. My evil plan has come to fruition! "What plan?" Shut up Demon. Um… a lot of those things are a secret, but you'll find out about Link's gender this chapter. So! Eventually this will get an M rating, because I fail at avoiding horrible, nightmarish things. **

**Well then. Hope everybody's ready for some more mind screwing~! I'm going to note again that, reviews feed me. Also chocolate. But I'm avoiding sweets unless they're sentient and willing to let me (jokingly) hit on them, so reviews will have to do. **

**Fair warning: there's a lot of focus on sensations in this chapter, because Link's in a new body and, among other things, he registers more pain than before. See, testosterone affects your pain threshold. Men have more, so they actually feel less pain than women. So Link is going to have lots and lots of fun. (Women also tend to see more colors. Technically they're about on par with men on spacial awareness except at a young age, but I took some license because the idea of Link having to get used to that too amused me.)**

**Also - if your clothes are too tight, and something cuts the fabric where it's stretched - RIIIP.**

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><p><strong>Chapter 6: The Sword and the Wind<strong>

The blade sung through more rotting flesh, and light exploded from the wounds. The corpse burned away to dark ashes. A snarl ripped out of her as she pulled back her blade. "I hate this." She muttered, pushing back the hair that had fallen in her eyes. She wished she had a tie for it… if only her hat wasn't gone.

Demon was drifting around somewhere ahead of her in the dark palace – he kept dropping keys in strange places, and she more often than not found herself combing over rooms two or three times to find them, sometimes backtracking, and slicing monsters apart as they found her. From that she was already rather tired – her chest heaved with every breath, and her clothes were stained though with exactly what she wasn't certain. The monsters, she had noticed, dissolved into darkness a few minutes after dying. Well, that was, except for the redeads in the first few rooms… she would leave a room a moment, and if she returned they were gone, but otherwise the corpses lingered. She'd opened and shut a door without going through it, and hid herself behind a shelf once to see why. Her curiosity didn't go unrewarded. The payback for it was a sight rather eerie… she couldn't see much from her vantage point; the corpse on the ground and the floor to the next wall. She stayed crouched by the shelf and peering through the cracks between books, until a pair of chalk-white feet had appeared – dropped from above, really - stained with ashes and blood both red and blue, dried brown and violent violet… while she was silent witness who or whatever it was dragged the battered corpse from the room with slow, methodic steps… horror twisted in her chest.

All kinds of alarmed, she'd run as soon as it vanished, back to the room she was supposed to be in. Demon had flitted back inside sometime in her absence and was now curiously looking her over, almost worried. She never realized how much the eyes and eyebrows told about an expression before. "… You shouldn't linger." He said, then glancing back over his shoulder he added, "Two more doors."

_What? _"Until the exit?... can't you just give me the keys, Demon?" She cursed herself after her complaint and bit her tongue, just as his gaze – wide-eyed and curious – swiveled back to her.

"… You'll call me that, now?" He asked, sounding neither angry nor sad, but certainly not joyous either. Just… curious. Like it didn't matter.

Link didn't see how a name couldn't matter. She took a breath. "It doesn't feel as strange."

"… alright." He murmured, and under the bandages she could see his lips begin to curl. His eyebrows came down and he narrowed his eyes in a devious smile. "No, I won't just give you the keys. They're already hidden. But… if you find them in fifteen minutes, I'll give you a gift." He leaned in. "A really good one." Although the promise in his voice was anything but pure, Link didn't see any reason not to trust him. Well… as much as she ever trusted him. She took off, combing over the room for a puzzle, a switch, anything. Demon chuckled and made off a touch more leisurely, sliding through a high passage made for his kind while Link kept searching.

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><p><em>Damn, so close… <em>She groaned and hissed, squeezing a little further down the tunnel. She knew as a male she'd have no issue traversing this passage. The knowledge was bitter. _This hurts, _she realized numbly, breasts squished up between her chest and the ice-cold stone floor. Her tunic was still damp, too – the temperatures here didn't exactly facilitate quick drying. She would never believe it was summer. _The problem with towers. Heat rises. _She gasped and forced a hand from her side, gritting her teeth and reaching forward…

The click of a lock. _Yes._ Without waiting another second she snatched up her prize, and began the arduous task of pushing out of the little tunnel backwards. _Who was this even made for? And… how on earth did he manage this with his wings? _She scraped one elbow and cursed – _Fuck!_ _Did it ever hurt this much before?_ – and with a final good shove forced herself out, almost smacking the back of her head into the top of the stone tunnel in her escape. She took in a breathe of as-fresh-as-a-dungeon-ever-got air, then forced herself to her feet before taking off to unlock the next door. She'd probably spent most of her time just _reaching _that damn key, and she'd put it off until every other inch of the room was searched. Demon had been a good enough sport to never put things _too _out of reach, but he was getting plain out sadistic in his hide-and-go-seek.

The next room she stumbled into was… huge.

… _damn. Damn damn damn._

She was certain Demon was laughing wherever he'd hidden himself this time.

With a long, slow breath for calm – how much time did she have left? Would he appear to tell the game was up? – she closed her eyes, and when she'd steadied her breathing she opened them and looked over the room. Two trees parallel to each other, a door beyond them with a lock over it. Above that a window in the stone leading into darkness, with half-broken steps she would have to jump between to reach the window's ledge. Long rich vines lined either side of the room, leading to more dark windows and whole ledges, and a crystal switch in the center of the ceiling that was already activated… outside a lazily-spinning skulltula to her left, there were no monsters

She narrowed her eyes and began jogging forward – it would be quicker to jump up and look into the alcove than to climb one or both of the walls, and time was something she wasn't even sure she actually _had, _because even though she also wasn't sure she'd really think Demon's gift was 'a really good one', she _knew _she wouldn't like the alternative. She just wanted to get out of here with her neck intact, then she'd worry about gifts and boons like the wellbeing of her friends and family. And having a home to return to… her feet slammed up against the stone and she _pushed, _so she could take off and land on the next stair – she lost her balance and cursed and wind-milled her arms 'till it was regained, and thought 'this new distribution of weight is a pain…' but of course, less sweetly – another three steps, another leap, two more and then she was on the ledge, sliding into the darkness. At the end of the hall a bright red gem glittered out of the black, mounted on the front of a chest with what seemed like a spotlight shining down on it. Link jogged up to open it.

She removed a gleaming silver key and sighed, eyes flitting shut a moment. The chest's lid banged down. A body emerged from the darkness in front of her, two hands coming down to lean on the metal and stone…

"Congratulations, hero." Demon smiled, dark and slow. "You had fifteen seconds left."

… Link didn't respond beyond clutching her chest and sighing in relief. Meanwhile Demon watched her face, far more amused than he had any right to be. "Now, about your prize…" He began in a sweet purr, leaning across the treasure chest and into Link's space, almost close enough that Link could lean forward and his nose would meet her neck. From an ephemeral nowhere, (where he seemed to retrieve everything that wasn't a blade) he produced a much more intricate key. Inset with a glittering ruby on the base and the design of a wing etched into the surface of the metal shaft, it was quite pretty. Link found herself wondering if it would open the door of a crypt.

"Come." Demon bade her, so she did. They slid through the oily black darkness a few more steps before the back of a wing pressed against her. She stopped. A door seemed to materialize from nowhere in the black ether, and she could see Demon quite clearly, as though they were in a low-lit room. He stepped to the side. In the center of the door – ornate and impressive, with clean lines and fine wood – there was a keyhole.

She put in the ornate key, musing over the concept that, who knew, maybe the next room would be _her _crypt, and twisted it. Together they pushed open the door.

Purple greeted their eyes. White-silver stars speckled the high vaulted ceiling; lush indigo curtains took up a section of wall across the room. A great sugar-white moon hung from the ceiling and the soft light that spilled over everything in the room emanated from its core.

The bottoms of the curtains were draped over a high platform of black marble, two sets of stairs curving around it from the sides. In the center, in front of a gap in the curtains – revealing naught but starry black – there was a white throne and two glowing orbs, their light dramatic enough to outshine the moon, but just around the throne. Between the stairs at the bottom there was a young man waiting with hands clasped behind him, and his back to them.

Demon flitted off toward the ceiling. Link stepped into the room.

When she did, the young man turned to face her, long hair swinging in front of his eyes. "So, you've come to face me," He began as he turned to her, "Her- _oh._" His voice, so dramatically foreboding in the beginning, had fallen to a squeak. Red eyes bulged out of his head, and Link had a few uncomfortable realizations while he was frozen. The first was _yes, _that was Zelda's cousin, and the second was… that he was staring at her chest. She looked down to the clinging wet fabric.

… _Oh. That_ had never happened before. Well. That probably would be… distracting. She bit back a grimace and raised her sword to him. His gaze only shifted for a second. And honestly, he looked pained. "Are you the one controlling the monsters?" She demanded, and his eyes flashed to hers for a moment.

"… what?" He managed. She snarled and tried again.

"I'm challenging you. If I win, you have to stop the monsters and let me leave in peace." She put out this time, sword still pointed at him.

His eyes managed to stay on hers for more than a fraction of a second this time, calculating, dark… "Okay." He said slowly, and a slight grin slid over his mouth as his eyes slipped back down. "And if I win, you're going to be my bride."

… okay then. Link was about to tell him just where he could go and what he could do there, when there was a whisper in her ear.

_Just agree to his terms. You'll beat him easy. _It sounded like a girl… Link nodded her head once, and told the demon boy she agreed. He clapped his in hands what was probably happiness, but actually sent the room shaking. Link scowled and charged him.

A shout of surprise before he jumped back, barely missing an unfortunate encounter with the mastersword, and a hastily prepared flare spell was tossed in her face. She ducked it, but it was enough for him to gain distance. From then he pushed her back with bursts of wind and danced away from the singing of her blade, but his spells – all of his spells - were weak. She could tell he wasn't used to fighting, or trying to cast while someone else was trying to cleave off his head… he was probably hoping the same of her. (Fat chance – she'd been training at the sword school since before she could remember anything else.) Their little dance carried them up the marble stairs onto the high platform of the throne, and she knew she had to be careful here – a blast of wind could drop her down, down, to the unforgiving ground to break something, and certainly stun her. Her opponent wasn't a great match though; his eyes had the unfortunate habit of wandering, and though the notion was almost physically painful, it _did_ cross her mind to use that. So when she slipped and he managed to land a hit, she did.

The demon – what was his name? Batty? – let out a noise, something like surprise and then satisfaction when the fateful strike hit her. It was more a graze, she'd certainly suffered worse, but it stung and still sliced a shallow wound on her front.

The happy noise he made turned to one of _supreme_ happy when Link's chest yanked at the tunic until there was a very clear gap between the bottom of her breasts and the slice along her solar plexus. Since Link could very rarely find anything funny when she was fighting for her life, she didn't stop to think. She plunged forward and knocked him to the ground with the flat of her blade, slammed her boot down on his chest hard enough to bruise, and held the tip of her sword to his throat.

He continued to stare up her tunic.

She opened her mouth to comment on that – something irritated about how _anyone _could be so easy to distract, or whether or not he wanted to live after all – when a new body materialized from the darkness behind the throne.

He wasn't like… Batty, or Vaati, or whatever his name was. He was the man Link had passed escaping the cell block… and he was _mad. _Red eyes glittered in a long face with sharp features, and the eyes were the kind that killed. He towered over Link, lips drawn slightly back, just enough to reveal bright sharp teeth.

"I beat you." Link said slowly to the young man under her boot, but as she spoke she was more than aware of the new one, carefully listening to everything from his part of the room. Her fallen foe didn't respond except for a flicker of the eyes. And her gaze wavered between him, and the much more powerful entity, "So you have to let me go."

"What did you agree to?" The monster-man rumbled, red eyes flashing and homing in on Vaati.

He squeaked. The eyes narrowed further.

"I see…" The devil-mage muttered after that, sounding vexed, without Vaati having said a thing… he couldn't read their minds, could he? "No matter." His eyes turned back to regard her, a cold fire in the already icy room. For just a moment they seemed to soften and linger on her hair – but then they were on hers again, expression as sharp as a blade and eyes as deadly. "I'm the other half. You must defeat me, too."

And he lunged.

* * *

><p>Bright crimson flames danced from the edges of his sleeves and licked across her skin, daggers of wind went whizzing by her. She spun and dodged and didn't think – her body was made for this, trained for it. Even so, this wasn't the right body – but it could only slow her for a second before she was twisting around again, slashing at his arms, looking for a hole in his defenses. Another gust of fire and wind came spiraling toward her – swerving it and cursing, she wished for a shield. She wondered what Demon was doing… those were her only thoughts before her mind fled her again. His spells weren't little scratches – they tore apart the air like blades whizzing by. His flares were blinding and the fire he cast would have burnt her to cinders. And now the demon mage had risen above her, chanting in a strange tongue… light gathered above his hands, a violent magenta swirl in darkness… just like the orbs by the throne. As she stared at them in something like despair, she noticed that it was, in fact… perfectly alike.<p>

Link snarled and dashed for them while he formed the ball, eyes as bright as the energy coiled in his fingers. He couldn't even see her. She wrapped her hands around an orb and grinned. _Perfect. _

Over the summer, she'd had to take supplementary magic classes. The reason (Mido, screaming in pain, was a nice but unnecessary image in the tale) didn't matter so much as what had stuck – if a spell struck another spell of the same strength (doubly so when it was the same kind of spell), fun stuff happened. Terribly fun stuff that ended in injuries for everyone.

Sometimes things exploded. With that bright thought, she chucked the ball at him just as his spell was ready to descend on her.

* * *

><p>The resulting shockwave was rather impressive, Demon noted. He was quite comfortable in his shadow perch, watching the hero save the day and defeat the evil king. The wind mage fell back to the forsaken earth, bloodied and burnt and stunned, and Link went tumbling down to press her sword at his throat. "Let's try this again," She gritted out, the faint tone drifting up to the rafters, and Demon thought '<em>Yes, lets'. <em>

He began to flit down – silent as ever – as Link raised her sword over Gufuu's heart. The mage hissed at her – his life was enough to be shaken from a stupor for, Demon supposed – and threw a burst of light at her, fleeing as a blur of darkness through a high window.

Somewhere behind them, Vaati stumbled out.

Demon stepped up behind Link, not close enough to strike, but enough to catch her attention. She turned a weary stare to him. "… are you happy?" She asked. He didn't answer, but tilted his head to regard her. In his fingers the key appeared, and he brought it up for their examination. "Do you want to go back?" He wondered. Without a thought Link nodded.

So he broke the key back in two, very gently, and when the halves came apart Link's body warped again. Her screams still echoed through the castle – after a moment Demon joined her on the floor, pressing a hand to her back and murmuring soothing things until the burning agony began to fade… and then when Link stood, weight was where it should've been, the great aches had dulled to small pains, the world was duller in shade but wider and so much deeper again… He breathed a sigh of relief, eyes slipping shut. He didn't even step away from the still-so-close guardian.

Demon spun around and lashed out, startling Link into opening his eyes. A flash of steel was in his fingers, and when the blurs cleared away with clashes of cacophonous metal Link saw several knives embedded in the wall above the doorway. Demon lowered his blade. Link noticed it was a small one he carried on his back.

A tall, imposing figure appeared from the darkness beyond the open door, and as the light fell on her features Link recognized Impa, with red eyes trained on the two of them. Her gaze was sharp and dangerous, and she homed in on the sword in Link's fingers. After she'd looked him over once she turned to Demon, and there really was something terrifying in the way she stared. Link was glad the look wasn't directed at him, almost. Demon's own wings came down, tucking around him like a scolded child ducking away from their mother. And it didn't go without notice, but Link was beaten and weary; he wasn't able to summon the alarm he should have.

"He was not the one chosen." Impa intoned with wings high in the air behind her – they gave more height she didn't need.

As she judged him, Link stared back into red eyes, almost incredulous and honestly afraid, but not willing to show it. Demon seemed to be subordinate to her. If she told him to, would he finish Link…? His fingers twitched around the hilt of the mastersword, and just as he was ready to again raise the blade in defense of his own life, Demon stepped forward. In front of him.

Red eyes burned in challenge - cold fire and clarity. The wings flared out just enough to show defiance, but otherwise kept Link tucked to his side. Demon canted his head. "The sword chose him." He began, heedless of the warning glare he received from her, "I tested him, and he passed. What more does he need to be chosen?" Impa's eyes narrowed until there were only slits of burning red. Her wings flared out a bit, and the expression on her face flashed like they had spoken of this before. That it was… something Demon knew already… but it really couldn't have been, because a thousand years was a very long time.

And at her look Demon only shook his head. "I watched him. He can do this. He will be the hero." Impa didn't respond. Her harsh stare didn't change for a while yet, but when it did it still wasn't _soft_, just conceding defeat for that moment.

"… very well. But if he fails, it shall fall on all of us." With that foreboding message, she produced a deku nut, and tossed it to the floor. Link swore while his hands flew up to press to his ringing ears. _Bright white _was his vision and then painful, flashing lights; orbs of color that meant nothing flit around the world. When his vision cleared of course, Impa was gone, and he stood alone with the man whose name he couldn't remember in the Tower of Winds. He switched his gaze to the guardian of the blade, eyes narrowed and sharp. Demon had returned his sword to a sheath tied to his back and was looking back at Link as silent and calm as he'd ever been.

"… alright." Link murmured, pushing back the sigh of relief that he was still breathing and alive, eyes flitting shut. So he wasn't the 'chosen' hero. He could get pissed at Demon later. Right.

No way, he was getting mad now. He opened his eyes after another moment to glare. "What was all that crap about fate and destiny?" He asked in a very dangerous voice, as he had quite a lot to be upset about. He had enough stress this week without turning into a girl and fighting some monster or another to save the world, if he wasn't the one that was supposed to do it in the first place.

"I never said anything about those." Demon returned so very easily, unbothered by the glare on Link's face. Judging by the way his eyes narrowed and he canted his head, he probably thought it was cute. "I don't need a prophecy to know something bad is coming – history has a way of repeating itself." With that he waved off the notion, his wings flashing out to their full size and then fluttering closed on his back. The movement was rather distracting for Link. "And don't for a moment think that I need the rule of something as fickle as destiny to see a hero. You pulled the sword and no one else. That's the only proof I need that you are chosen. Well… that and dragging you through here." He added the last bit like an afterthought, glancing off a second. Link narrowed his eyes.

_Uh-huh…_ "Okay." He said softly, canting his head. Demon believed in him. That was a lot more than most people he knew had done, (certainly more than that Impa lady was doing) but at once… "… If you're that strong," Because they both knew, from her presence and precision of blade, that Impa was far from weak, "why do I have to be the hero?"

"Because, Link." Demon smiled under his bandages, his red eyes focused only on Link... there may as well have been nothing else in existence. And from his tone of voice, this was something he'd wanted to answer for a very long time… "Someone like me would sooner destroy the world than save it."

* * *

><p><strong>(end chapter)<strong>

**Can I just say I felt SO WEIRD writing female pronouns for Link? Sheesh… **


	7. Smoke and somnolence

**Review responses: **

**Trolly's Bara-chan:** You need the glowy wounds. You need theeeem.

**CottonCandyHaze: **Thanks for reading, then~!

Hmm. I know at least one person stopped reading after 6… oh well. *shrugs* I'm having fun here. The story is fun~.

Another note: Sorry if it seems a little heavy with (female for male) fanservice. Link and Demon are being pains, you see. I'll try to get in a treat with them next chapter. (Hey, I gave one at the end of THIS chapter!) Mmm… sparring Demon… *grins*

Alrighty then! Thanks for reading, more thanks if you review, and let's go!

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 7: Smoke and somnolence (Debut)<strong>

When they stepped outside, the rotting corpses had sunken into the ground, and the strange energy over the world had faded. The storm was gone without a trace of ever having been, even a drop of rain. Every sign of the aberration, gone… All except the overturned dirt in the Tower of Wind's courtyard, and the irreplaceable knowledge that something had changed – was still changing, the gears of a clock or the stars falling out of the sky - and he was trapped in its center.

Demon canted his head to look upwards when they stepped out of the tower. His eyes gleamed with more knowledge than Link could hope to capture. "The spell has been lifted." He said it slowly, but the twist of his lips underneath the bandages told more; he had been certain it would happen from the beginning.

"… What happened?" Link wondered as they crossed the field, eyeing the earth where there should have been remains, groaning corpses, the shattered bodies of soldiers long dead. Anything other than the clean, tall grass of an empty pasture left to overgrow. It didn't even look like it had rained…

Demon didn't pause, giving a thoughtful stare to the night sky. "Someone was testing their power. The monsters weren't substantial… just shadows, the kind that shatter and fade when you rip them apart. The corpses were real, though. It must have been painful for them."

"… painful?" Link shook his head. "They can't feel anything – they're dead."

"I meant the spirits. Imagine having your own remains stolen, to work for the one who had killed you, who you'd literally died fighting. It seems… unpleasant." Demon gestured off to one side, abstract and vague and a little melancholy. Link didn't have the energy a derisive laugh required.

"Unpleasant. Yeah. I guess it would be." He shifted, wishing for the weight of a scabbard on his back though he couldn't begin to fathom why. He'd never carried a blade before…

Demon had vanished away the mastersword back in the tower; Link wondered where it went. He thought about asking, but there were more important answers he hoped to glean while the guardian still gazed quietly at the scattered-firefly sky. "… what happened to everyone? When you said spell, were you talking about it?" Red eyes slanted toward him a second.

"That was what I meant. The spell put them to sleep."

_What…? _"Then why aren't we asleep?" Link asked. Demon shrugged.

"I imagine it would be that the sword's magic shields us both."

"And Impa?" Link added, and more silently in his head, _the medic…? Sheik?_

Demon clicked his tongue. They were nearing the gates. Few would be out and about anyway, though; their village seemed to wake with the sun and sleep with the moon's rising. And that was fine, since it allowed them to continue their walk uninterrupted. "That's a little harder." He said, and seemed to really consider it. He canted his head to the side, eyes lingering on a wind chime's dance. "… it could be the spell was only meant to affect hylians. I'm certainly not one… looking at you, I'd say you aren't either."

"Why?" Link demanded. Demon tapped the side of his head.

"Ears. Yours are too long." He said, and Link mulled that one over with a sour expression.

"… whatever." Demon could assume what he wanted, "So you're saying the spell could've put everyone to sleep because they're hylian?"

"Yes."

"That's insane."

"You woke me up from what should've been an eternal slumber, turned into a girl, and fought a long-dead demon king. I think the spell is the most logical happening in all of this." Demon listed off with immediate precision before his rather convincing conclusion, like he'd been mulling it over all night and had concluded it some time ago.

… Link didn't really have a reply for that.

They continued through the town, mostly silent, but Demon stopped on the corner of Link's street. He passed Link's half of the key back, eyes glinting in what might've been interest, but could also have just been the light from the lantern a few feet down when it flickered. "... You're going to be the one to do this. Whether or not Impa thinks you can, I've seen you. You're the kind of person that won't give up until they manage to do what they want to, aren't you…"

And that honestly startled Link. He didn't know how anyone could say things like that to someone they'd just met. "I don't know about that." He muttered instead of anything else, bringing up a hand to brush over the shallow gash on his chest. Demon's wings fluttered.

"You're the hero." He said, and then he was gone. Link stared thoughtfully at the resettling shadows on the ground, the ones that had just swallowed him. Then he walked up to the door, realized Navi was going to flip, and decided to pay Zelda a visit instead.

* * *

><p>It was dark. He'd arrived from it, of course, so he knew it would be... The sound of water lapping against the earth drew his attention, and the reflection of the moon appeared in the surface of the spring. Eyes flashed and glowed yellow at him from the darkness but Demon paid them little mind, continuing his walk over to the edge. He dropped to his knees and scooped up a handful of water, watched it glitter and splash as it bled through his fingers. How long had it been…?<p>

"So, he really did wake you up." The voice that came didn't startle him, but it wasn't the one he'd been expecting either. When he turned around another figure had emerged from the darkness of the forest at night, illuminated only by the moon and the faintly glowing spring, ethereal as ever. The gleaming yellow eyes still watched them both from the shadows.

"Yes, I really got out." He returned, and wondered if they too, perhaps, had hoped he'd sleep forever. But the eyes like mirrors of light gave no indication of feeling, and the demon that stood across from him didn't seem much inclined to read his mind, let alone answer the questions swimming in it.

"… you should eat." The one with the mirror eyes spoke up finally, though why he chose to say that, only he would ever know. He stood up and stepped delicately over to the edge of the spring, where the guardian still stood and watched the shadow-riddled face of the other demon. Sharp fingers gently came to rest on his back, a little urge to move him forward. And that was all it took; he began to walk out of the forest, back to the trail, and toward the building nestled on the edge of the town…

* * *

><p>Link frowned. Climbing the vines was harder than he remembered. He wasn't very quiet about it, either – a curious Zelda had poked her head out the window about two minutes ago, and was now watching him with amusement glittering in her eyes. She pulled him the rest of the way up when he was in range, and the amusement bled to worry when she saw the cut along his front. Her eyes began to <em>burn, <em>then.

"Who did this?" She asked him, in the tight voice reserved for 'trying not to flip out' or something to that effect.

Link heard footsteps pause outside her door, very faint ones. She didn't react. He wondered if she had heard them at all. "It's not important." He shushed instead, and added, "It's not even bleeding."

Zelda didn't like that. She turned on her desk light and retrieved a first aid kit, made him disrobe by threatening to rip the tunic in two, and cleaned the slice below his chest. He grimaced and looked out the window. The quiet never lasted long when she was upset. "You know I worry about you, right?"

"Yes." He answered faintly, thinking that it would've been better to go home and change than to upset her. Zelda frowned; leaning back – she'd been staring very intently at the edges of the wound, because the skin there looked strange – and took up a roll of bandages from the kit she kept in her nightstand. She began to bandage his torso.

"You're magic. Too big for bandages and too shallow for stitches." Zelda snorted, shaking her head. "I know you think I'm freaking out over nothing – if this was on me, I would be freaking out over nothing – but the way people here treat you… it bothers me. You can't let them hurt you."

"When have I ever let _anyone_ hurt me?" Link demanded incredulously. Zelda scowled and began to count on her fingers. Link stopped after two – she looked ready for far more.

"Okay, so I might've then…" He muttered, "But this was different." Zelda stared at him for a while, but he didn't explain it and she realized asking was an exercise in futility. Link was as stubborn as she was, maybe worse; she'd known that for a very long time. Perhaps even before they'd met. Which really seemed a strange notion, but she was full of those… She sighed and shoved him over onto her bed, shaking her head.

Link noticed she was more careful than usual.

"Go to sleep, Link. Tomorrow we'll figure out what bull you're feeding to Navi, I guess?"

"You're picking up bad language from Kers." Link tried to say it convincingly but it was muttered and broken by a yawn. "And… yes, please." _Oh, _how'd he never realize a bed could be this comfy…? And when had his eyelids become so heavy…? today was too long, he decided. Tomorrow could be better.

Consciousness dropped off.

Zelda watched him until he was breathing easy, just a lump beneath the covers. Then she stood up and walked over to open the door.

"It's not nice to eavesdrop."

* * *

><p>"… You'd think he's never eaten." She muttered, a little bit stunned, and the equally stunned man beside her said,<p>

"Technically, he hasn't. Since he got locked in, you know?"

"Yeah…" they continued to sit and stare while their guest wolfed down food like he had never eaten before, and could never eat again. Kers poked his head in. After a moment of looking, the rest of him followed, and he took the empty plates from the table.

"Seconds?" He asked, balancing a tray of dishes on one hip. Demon paused eating just long enough to give him large, adorable eyes that _should not work _on the face of a demonic temple guard.

"Please?"

Predictably, Kers melted. "Just give me a minute," He said with a fond smile, patting Demon on the head before returning to the kitchen, tail swaying behind him. Sanguine tried not to let his eye roll become too indiscrete. The until-then silent, second woman at the table still noticed.

"The boy he's picked up – you've been teaching him, haven't you?" Impa was an impressive person, easily taller than most. Sanguine was about on-level with her, but she would probably make him nervous with her other traits… if he lived with anyone else. Even without her height, she had a very serious disposition and an aura that warned off troublemaking and mischief. She was not someone to be trifled with.

Sanguine, being the kind of person who had no problems ignoring such auras, tended to trifle with her whenever possible, but now wasn't the time. Sadly.

He forced his gaze away from the ravenous guide to… he wasn't sure. His eyes kept flickering back toward Demon before he could focus on anyone else. It was rather upsetting.

He settled on staring at Impa instead, because the tattoos under her eyes were pretty distracting too. "Yeah." He nodded, thinking back on the student he'd as good as inherited from the last instructor, who was retiring this week. "Hero. Good kid, bit of a temper." He paused and took a drink of his coffee. _Tastes like mud. _He thought, and then, _Aris must've made it_. Kers's coffee tasted like cream and bitter almonds, not this… swill.

Impa frowned at him as though she knew what he was thinking. "I made the coffee."

… he took another sip. _Damn. _"So as I was saying, good kid. Pretty good tolerance for the unusual, too."

"Like what?"

"Well, he met us and didn't run screaming from the room, never to return." He shrugged with an easy smile on his face.

"…"

"… right. I forgot you don't joke." He took another sip of the horrible coffee. Kers walked in with more food, and Demon pronounced his undying love and devotion for the fox. Kers laughed and Aris pronounced them all insane, before saying she was going to go talk to the archery instructor about today's drills. And through all that, Impa mulled over what she was told.

"Kers was training my niece, was he not?"

"Still is." Sanguine nodded and gave Demon a glance. There was a certain surreal aspect to this whole breakfast… "Hero teamed up with her to take Kers on the other day – from what I hear, they did well."

"Can he do it?" Impa wondered, and Sanguine didn't bother hiding his smirk. Ah, the crux of the matter…

"Will you just have some faith in me, please?" Demon cut in, looking frustrated. Impa frowned at him.

"There is a reason for prophecy."

"The sword chose him!" Demon argued, leaning over. "I've seen him fight! He gets this look in his eyes and you know! He can do this! It wouldn't have chosen him if he couldn't." He didn't slump over or fall back once he said it – he stayed tense and irate and leaning over the table, a frustrated expression coupled with a seething glare. Sanguine eyed his mouth – he always expected to see a scar under those bandages, but it was never there. It just seemed strange to hide your face if there wasn't something to actually _hide…_

Impa scowled back at Demon, and Sanguine found himself wondering if he'd get to play referee this early in the morning. The thought didn't appeal to him – no doubt Kers would revel in the chaos and make everything worse. Sanguine really wished they could switch jobs but _noooo, _he had to be the good guy while Kers got to ever-so-gleefully play devil…

"… The sword could be wrong." Impa said finally, and Sanguine began paying attention to their argument again, waiting for a moment he'd have to intervene. Demon's eyes narrowed.

"The prophecy could be wrong. And I think after all this time, I might know a little better than you." With that, Demon looked away and continued eating. Whether or not he and Sanguine were expecting a fight for that… it didn't happen. Impa only sighed and made to leave, though she paused in the doorway.

"… don't forget what you were taught." She told him faintly, and Demon inclined his head. Impa left.

Kers stepped back in after a moment where he lingered beyond the doorway and watched them. "… If you don't have anywhere else, you're staying here." He said. It wasn't a question.

Gazing off into nowhere, Demon nodded. "… You know, she attacked us. My timing was off." He cocked his head. "We almost got hit." His eyes slid to Kers, considering and sleepy, with a dreamy quality to them as he spoke… "Can you train with me? Until I'm back to full, again." And Kers smiled.

It wasn't a kind look.

* * *

><p>Link resisted the urge to sigh, putting another spoonful of cereal in his mouth. He wasn't sure why he'd turned down Griselda's offer of pancakes. Speaking of the Lewenhart matriarch; she was on the phone with Navi now, offering keep an eye on him until Navi was back from her appointment. In the background Link wondered… exactly how old was he, again? <em>Seventeen. That's not too old to be babysat. <em>He didn't think he could cram more sarcasm into his thoughts in that moment. And Link was an expert at jamming too many of things into places they didn't belong (remember the tektites, and many of Navi's meals. Though both of those involved his mouth… oh, well. All part of his head he supposed).

"You're sick, honey." Griselda cooed, as if she knew what he was thinking, and she probably did. She had 'mom magic' or something, that was what she'd been telling Zelda and him for years on end… "If you had a bad fever and there was no one around, or something happened; oh, I don't even want to imagine. This is why you shouldn't go tramping through the cold in damp clothes."

Link felt like correcting her; that being cold didn't make you more likely to get sick, but the discomfort it brought _could_ lower your immune system. But he didn't, just shoveled in more cereal. Now he remembered why he turned down the pancakes – he felt irredeemably terrible. He wanted to curl up and sleep for an eon.

With little to mind besides his thoughts and his food, he glanced at the TV in the corner – apparently the gears of the political world were moving as well as ever. A man with olive skin and hair like fire was in the camera's focus, speaking amiably to a crowd in the square. According to the box on the bottom of the screen, it was taping live.

It was news, but… No mention was made of the strange spell that fell over the town last night. None of the monsters or the lingering storm that had so suddenly faded. Nothing but politics.

Link frowned around his spoon. Odd.

Really odd.

Griselda sat down at the table too, turning the volume up. "He's talking about an alliance."

"Don't we already… have an alliance?" Link asked, eyebrows rising.

"Not quite. It's more like we pretend they don't exist, on a political level. They're fine with it as long as they can make trades and come and go relatively freely." Griselda informed him, storm-grey eyes still fixed on the screen. Her gaze reminded him of a bird.

"Oh." He continued eating cereal.

When he finished, he was shooed into a sitting room and made to lie down on the couch while Griselda did work at the desk in the corner. He curled up under his blanket, shut his eyes, and felt as though he were ten again as he went to sleep.

* * *

><p>When he stirred, it was to a pair of red eyes peering at him. "Gah!" he jumped, pushing back into the cushions as much as he could. Vaati, leaning over the back of the couch, continued to stare at him, a slight frown tugging his lips.<p>

"Do you have any idea how creepy it is to wake up and have someone _staring _at you?" Link demanded, clutching his chest and breathing a little heavier than usual. Vaati gave a slow, almost-confused blink.

"… nope." He muttered, narrowing his eyes and peering at Link like he was a new and intensely interesting subject. "Do you have a sister? Zelda says you don't have a sister." His eyes narrowed, with calculation and something more dangerous gleaming in them… Link wasn't sure if it was desire or sadism. Vaati leaned a little closer, canting his head. "Well, do you?" Link scowled and resisted the urge to punch him. Barely.

"No, I don't have a sister." He muttered, glaring at Vaati. "I do however have personal space. You're invading it." He added acerbically. Vaati continued to stare at him, only backing off after a moment or two of Link narrowing his eyes and _growling_.

Zelda came in shortly thereafter, and Vaati fled with a bizarre one-liner about 'bullying the dragon'.

* * *

><p><em>The absolute value of the square root of five multiplied by the variable x is…<em>

He resisted the urge to smack his head into the hard, cold surface of his desk. The desk didn't care for his pain. It was a desk. ... What was x again?

"Seven," Zelda corrected gently, and he blinked. Oh, right. Seven.

… he had no idea what he was doing.

Zelda glanced at the clock and patted his shoulder. "I have to head home. Dad's got some big dinner party and I have to go because I'm the heir to his legacy, or something like that. I wasn't really paying attention, I know that's bad, I know. Feel better." She leaned down to kiss him on the temple and walked out. Link muttered something unsavory about math homework when he was out sick and threw the crumbled up page of equations across the room.

He got out a clean sheet of paper and began doodling with colorful markers instead. Zelda riding on the back of a dragon with the mastersword in hand, Demon in a dress tied to a post, and also another one of him suspended in amber crystal because the first didn't seem quite right… Epona galloping across a rainbow because it made as much sense as anything else he ever thought of, and a very red bird with a duck-like bill standing on the first Demon-in-drag's post, leaning down to peck him on the head. Link leant back and looked at his masterpiece.

It looked utterly insane.

"Link! Dinner!" Navi's shout broke into his musings, of monsters and princesses-who-were-demon-princes, of damsels that really _caused_ distress, and wizards who wore sexy black dresses. Or he assumed they were sexy, he wasn't really certain what people looked for in a sexy woman. He patted the picture absently and wandered downstairs. Navi handed him what looked suspiciously like a piece of boiled boot.

* * *

><p>The TV was going when he went upstairs.<p>

After he returned to his room, an apple in hand (he _was not _eating his own boot for dinner, he just wasn't) he sat down and sketched in the woman he'd been envisioning, the dark-clothed sorceress. She looked a little bit like the troublesome upperclassman, but he gave her fire for hair and black lipstick instead of blue. To match the dress.

He heard the snarl of a motorcycle and, looking outside, saw the rider on the blue bike pull into the Lewenhart's garage. Black-clad hands came up to grasp the helmet just as the door sunk down, obscuring their head from his sight. He opened the window and stretched his body out over the sill, slumping there as languid as any cat, and regarded the neighborhood with a lazy and thoughtful air. The heat of the day was fading with the setting sun, and the birds were landing in their nests to go to sleep. The earliest rising keese – a friendlier breed that left the humans alone, provided they weren't antagonized – were flitting through the sky as black streaks on a watercolor painting. (Sunrises were drawn in pastels, of course.)The evening birds and just-woken owls were beginning the chorus of dusk alongside the crickets and cicadas, and the soft singing wind… Link sneezed and ducked out of the breeze a moment to shiver. It really seemed too cold for summer.

His ears twitched.

"Link, sweetie, come down here and look at this!" Navi's mildly concerned voice broke him away from whirling thoughts (_Gufuu escaped and Vaati is fine, he's onto me-!)_, and he pulled the window shut before leaving his room. A leap over the railing, foregoing the stairs, rolls across the open stretch when he hits the floor… the quickest route downstairs, though perhaps not the safest. Another heartbeat had him stepping into the living room.

Navi was frowning, focused on the television screen. So he looked closer at it, cocking his head at the large plumes of smoke flowing up from the old city hall …

"… _politicians and their families still trapped inside. Reports of a monster…"_

"Isn't that where Zelda said she'd be going this evening?" Navi wondered, and then, "I hope she got out alright."

Link looked back at the TV, a growing sense of dread in his belly. The grumble of a beast echoed out of the tv, faint and horrible. Link stepped out of the room slowly, almost counting the seconds between each footfall, breath, and lick of flame on the blurry screen… Then he ran for his room.

* * *

><p>A fire-extinguisher in a bag with the strap looped over his back and his bo clutched in one hand, with a bottle of mana potion in his pack, he ran down the street. He heard the grumble of the bike again as he turned the corner at the end of their block. The rider pulled up next to him and paused, gesturing for him to stop. He did, letting out a keening whine because really all he wanted to do was keep going, running until he hit the building and made sure everything was fine.<p>

"Are you heading for the Scarlet Hall?" The voice was muffled, and the helmet hid all but their eyes from him. The tinted visor turned the irises black. Link nodded. "Get on." He gestured to the back of the bike and handed him a helmet, and Link didn't need to be told it was faster. He jumped on the back and had barely fastened the chinstrap when they peeled out. He held on for dear life.

The snarl of the engine and the whipping wind drowned out anything he could've said, pushing into his thoughts and narrowing the focus down to a laser's precision, solely centered on the cloud of black he could see beyond the branches of trees they raced past. The rider took turns _hard_; more than once they'd nearly toppled, or crashed into something, and the speed they were going at was so obscenely high Link couldn't even guess the fine it would receive. Still, the streets were empty – everyone was either at home watching the news from the safety of their living rooms, or already at the scene of the fire. Already he could see the crowds, and the great billows of smoke seemed to swallow the lovely evening sky.

Icy air and bits of sand slashed against the bare skin of his arms and made him tuck closer to the rider (protected by black leather, how unfair), and when they rounded the last corner to the building's street they both had to throw their weight to the right at the last moment so the bike wouldn't spill them onto unyielding and unforgiving stone.

When they came to the sloped walkway leading up around the building the driver kept going, to the shock of the news crew and crowd milling on the other side. He – Link could definitely say, after being pressed _that _intimately close, that it was a he. Or the most muscular woman he'd ever met in his life – pulled to a stop and kicked down right in front of the doors, nodding when Link vaulted off the back and thanked him. "Be careful!" He called, and caught the helmet Link tossed back to him before disappearing through the doors. Screams echoed from inside.

The level he was on was dim and murky, but free of smoke – he realized the fire was probably in one of the upper levels. His problems lay elsewhere. Like tektites. Tektites that patrolled the hallways and leapt at him from around corners… Their hard bodies made them hard to kill with a bo, but if you hit them in the eye _just right…_ or snapped the joints of their legs, they went down easy. It was managing to land the required strikes that was difficult.

He rounded a corner and found himself ever closer the echoing screams. The other halls were dark, but this one was black – two points of light in the darkness illuminated a door, but the walls and floor seemed as dark and empty there as if the lights didn't exist at all. A darkness that swallowed everything… he began toward the entrance to the next room, setting his hands on ornate brass handles, when a pair of tan arms circled his chest. One hand came to rest over the half-key, a tender touch and sharp-tipped fingers.

"That staff won't do at all for what's beyond this door." Demon murmured, leaning over his shoulder to look at him. "I've brought the blade; are you ready to make your debut?"

_Like there's a choice. _(He ignored that he had one, because it wasn't as thought it was a _good_ one.)

Link took the sword and gave him the key.

For just a moment in time… his screams drowned out the sounds of terror from the other side of the door, and the sorrows of a thousand year blade and its demonic keeper flowed through him. He knew everything and nothing, an aria of pain painted across his mind that showed him the world. Infinite knowledge made tangible, copper-sharp and sugar-sweet on his tongue… a both wonderful and terrible pain lancing through every nerve. He found himself licking his lips when he came out of it. The ebb and flow of fading suffering was still… she shuddered and shook her head. It was still there.

"Are you ready?" Demon repeated faintly. Link reached behind her and felt the hair tie, to assure herself it was still there and holding her ponytail tight. It had shifted down with her hair's length, but it was still there… That assurance given, she nodded and opened the doors.

* * *

><p>The first thing she saw was brilliant white – as she peered closer it was revealed to be scales, pearly and shimmering with blue like light filtered through water, tiny scales stretched over a supple and serpentine form… A ripple passed along the body and she felt ice and fire at her back - when she turned around, mastersword in hand, a woman's torso was dangling down from the ceiling, a mirror clutched to her middle.<p>

Pearlescent scales on her cheeks, like the body of the snake… Sharp, ice cold eyes, soft lips twisted up in pleasure, a beautifully threatening face on the body of a beast.

_Mirror Serpent Ceres._ The girl's voice from Gufuu's tower – Link decided she would call it the sword's voice – whispered in his ear.

The serpent-woman's lips pulled back to flash fangs as white as her coiling tail. Link backpedaled into her tail, sword up, watching the beast descend from the ceiling… from the tail of the great snake a woman's body from the hips up emerged. Opalescent scales speckled soft white skin, and iridescent hair shimmered shades of marine blue and cyan green in the dark, water-light room. The strange light shimmered on the mirror she held over her belly, and Link watched it before she moved to coil her tail around her and lunged. Link shouted and swung the mastersword, moving with it when it stuck fast in the thick body of the snake, halting the tail's motion and vaulting over it as quick as the snake had been. On the other side she yanked it out to the sound of agonized screaming, and scrambled away from the now-enraged serpent.

As she raised her blade again, the snake's wound sizzled and mended itself. Link's eyes widened. The snake woman smirked.

_Shit. _

* * *

><p><strong>(Chapter end) <strong>

Oh no, Link, what are you getting intooooo…?

**Bonus scene!**

He hissed and panted, his stomach muscles straining and gleaming with sweat in the half-light of the room. His shirt was discarded somewhere in the corner, and the too-tight clothes of his partner in this dance were pressed intimately close to his skin while they grappled. The fight wore on, but sleepy and weak held nothing to raw power and feral rage. Demon hit the floor and slid back, panting under the harsh scrutiny of the fox spirit.

His partner stared down on him, cold eyes in a soft face, lips twisted down in a stern and sharp expression. "Giving up already, Demon?"

"You're calling me that too now?" He coughed; Kers hadn't played nice with his rib cage. He hoped nothing was broken…

Kers shrugged. "It suits you." He raised his claws and cocked his head. "Are you ready?"

Demon pushed himself to his feet and shifted so his weight was spread evenly between his legs; with feet set shoulder-width apart. He gave a determined nod. "Ready."

Kers lunged for his throat.

In the doorway, Sanguine shook his head. Only those two would make training a sensualistic death match.


	8. Snakes and looking glasses

**_Edit:_**What a pain. I'm posting this unbetaed for the moment, because it's been far too long and I can't stand waiting~! I'll edit as mistakes crop up. Please excuse any errors you find, please, and tell me? Thank you! **Edit again: **And it is now betaed~! Thank you, Bara dear~!

_Review responses~_

Trolly's Bara-chan: First? You usually are~…

SophieSynthetic: … I have a hard time remembering to write Link with female pronouns. I, ah, I actually had a whole paragraph in this chapter where I straight-up forgot…

Meg: Well… you didn't have to wait TOO long, right? Sorry about that. I fell in a slump and had a lot going on… I'm really glad to hear you're having fun though! I hope you continue to enjoy the insanity! I will do my best. *nod nod* Though that will probably include blatant fanservice.

Thanks for reviewing, everyone~! And I really am sorry about the lateness, I had this finished but unedited for a couple of days, but on Thursday the 8th after a certain someone found out I had finished and rushed to finish the chapter 8 of HER story, and since I beta that for her I was like '… damn I have to finish' so everyone be thankful to that still-unnamed person, okay? Myself included. So I finished up my edits on that selfsame day and added a bonus scene just to say sorry (bribe for forgiveness, same thing, eh?) SO! Everybody, let's have some more fun… **Ready? Go.**

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><p>"<em>Though the blade is named 'Evil's bane' there is a secret inside… a lie in the name, the trapped soul of Apocalypse, the great and terrible Demise. <em>

_The Goddess said the sword would strip his sins and evil intention. But the thing about evil is it doesn't like to die, and perhaps, just perhaps, the malice of ancient destruction burns on inside the snow-white blade of purity, and suffering…" _– The history of the mastersword, transcribed by the Worthless Angel

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><p><strong>Chapter 8: Snakes and looking-glasses<strong>

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><p>Screaming ripped apart the water-room.<p>

Link swore, blade swinging up to meet the snatching, horrid claws of the beast. She scrambled back and hacked at the languid body as she fled.

She heard the beat of wings and the snakewoman's eyes flickered to Demon, settled on a rafter and brandishing a blade. Eyes set on Ceres, Link cocked her head toward him.

"Demon." She murmured, so calm and so faint he almost believed she'd been possessed by someone else, "You can hear their voices, can't you."

"… Yes." He murmured, wondering which voices she had meant. It couldn't have been the ones he was worried about, though…

"Those people need help. Will you go to them while I fight her?" Ceres was sizing the two of them up while Link stayed so admirably icy-calm. Demon flicked his wings, giving a critical once-over to the naga. Red eyes fell half-shut and he made a noise of derision. "Of course. And you can handle this… charming lady in my absence, can't you, Link?"

Link nodded. "Yeah. And, uh… there's a girl inside. Blond hair, blue eyes, might try to fight you."

"Zelda."

Link gave him an odd look. "Yeah. … I'd rather she didn't see me."

"I'm not making promises." Demon took off; the steady beat of his wings the only evidence of his existence as he slid into darkness within a mess of rafters and sharp corners near the ceiling. Ceres watched him go with distrusting eyes, and she was better off for it. Link was the hero, but Demon was the beast trapped in the chains of hell. At the moment, at least, it was clear who was more dangerous. (… though of course in time, that would change…) The long, coiling body moved slowly around the room, pulsing like faint music. Link's heartbeat thundered in her ears, and the way the serpent's tongue flickered out while she slithered, she could feel it and wanted to taste… Her fangs flashed in a feral smile and she lunged again. Link leapt forward, swearing up a storm and bringing up cold steel to meet her.

* * *

><p>Nobles and politicians hung back in the corner, huddled together and anxious. A young man with blue hair sat on the edge of an abandoned table, giving a calculating glare to the space between himself and the wall, while a dark-skinned young girl sat curled at his feet. Another one was separate from the group, a pretty maiden– long blond hair loose in the back and fastened with Hylia-crystal bands in the front – paced the length of the room across from the huddled group, eyes narrowed, teeth just slightly bared, cursing up a storm inside her head.<p>

The blue-haired young man raised his head to the ceiling.

The sound of wingbeats reached them, and the pacing girl gave pause and baleful glare into the darkness at the corner of the room. The young man on the table stood up slowly, twirling a dinner knife in deft, idle fingers while he awaited a keese.

Red eyes peered out from the darkness. Slowly a tan hand reached out to wave. The blue haired man sat again and lowered his silverware. The girl he'd stood in front of gave a curious look to the one in darkness.

"The building is burning. You'd best get out before it gives." The red-eyed one called down to them, gaze sharp as any blades'. The blond girl jolted and watched him closer, pretty pink lips curling down in a frown. The nobles were wide-eyed with fear.

"Oh, we were aware." The blue haired man on the table spoke up, canting his head. His eyes were just as red as the demon's. "The problem lies in the beast between here and freedom. Any suggestions on how we would go about getting around that, then? They'd really be appreciated." His voice was serious, just a little sharp. The eyes in the dark blinked. "I have something in mind, actually."

A flash of blue-black and a thud.

Everyone looked at the bag now beside the dark-skinned girl, and the man with blue hair's feet. It was made of a dodongo's stomach. "The noise will set her off. She'll come hunting." The man pointed out, unimpressed by the offer of bombs. Demon remained just as unmoved.

"The serpent is busy being slain. The hero has come, now take the bag or stay and bleed. Or… perhaps I should say burn." The smile in his voice was a far cry from the kind savior's.

The clustered nobles shivered.

The blond girl walked over and picked up the bag, casting another glance to the eyes in shadow. They only watched. She turned back to the man whose face she could see. "It's worth a shot. There's a sword over the mantle – open up the back wall and I'll cover you."

The man's eyes narrowed, before he took the bag from her and stood. "Alright." He turned his gaze to the girl on the floor and became brisk. "Come on, Luda. I told your father I'd bring you home safe."

The girl nodded, catching hold of the side of his shirt and walking beside him silently. Only the slightest shivers betrayed her.

Ice-cold red eyes washed over the huddled nobles. "Back against the other wall while I blow this. I want you all behind something sturdy." And there was something about his voice that made them listen. Griselda Lewenhart stepped over and took Luda from him, while her husband went over to speak to the blond girl pulling down a shining blade.

"Are you clear?" That same girl called to him, knelt behind a table knocked on its side, sword to the ground and ready to be drawn in defense of their lives.

A quick look-over; everyone was behind shelter. _Smile for Zelda._ "Clear." He tossed the first bombflower.

The red eyes in darkness watched, while the wing-beats lingered.

* * *

><p>Agonized screaming washed over the room, bittersweet symphonies of long dead and tortured souls. Grasping claws snatched at her hair and held her up to bare her throat, and the snake's hot breath was on the vein when Link came out of the stupor. She drew a dagger from her hip and sunk it deep between the serpent lady's breasts, drawing a scream from pearl-white lips before needle-teeth clicked shut, millimeters from Link's flesh. She yanked out the knife and next stabbed her shoulder, her throat, even the side of her face… the blade was growing worn from all the bones it was scraping…<p>

Red gushed out – she let go of Link shortly after her shoulder was torn into – amazing, how fast one could move when they thought they would die - gore and cherry-blood rushing across her features. Her howls of pain echoed across the room, a leading lady for the cacophony of screams in the opera of tormented souls. Link stumbled back and scrambled for the mastersword – it had been forced from her hands when she'd been slammed against a very firm wall, then she had been wrapped up in the tail and arms of the leviathan killer, with the lethal eyes and needles for teeth.

Now Link raised her blade again, counting down the seconds in her head, and how many times she could get lucky before her throat would be snapped and lapped of fresh blood. She didn't want to have to be lucky. The convulsing woman was already beginning to heal – the blood disintegrated into black plumes of hazy smoke above the wounds, and the disgustingly-twitching body was already almost healed, clawed fingers - spastic and gentle – caressing the mirror's frame with odd little twitches in-between.

This thing was as fast as her, dozens of times stronger, and it… wouldn't… die… Link raised her blade and ran forward, because really she had to buy Demon time, and she said she could handle it, and if she couldn't beat it she could at least keep it down until there was a better choice, right? Any anyway… she really didn't want to hear that guy's voice if he had to come and save the day…

She leapt and sunk her blade into the side of the snake woman by her hip. The sword scrapped along bone and Ceres shrieked something ungodly, writhing in protest. Link's stomach rolled. At the corner of her eye the mirror flashed red and long clawed fingers were flashing at her, ripping into her, knocking her off, the sword barely kept in her fingers…

* * *

><p>There were escape tunnels under the building from a long time ago, during the war with the great Gale King. This wasn't the right route to them, but when your only ways to the proper channels were through a snake or through a fire, one tended to be less picky about routes (to put it mildly). The guardswoman in back was probably too young to be doing what she was, but her father wasn't the warrior he'd once been between injuries and age, and they needed his knowledge of the network. The rest of the nobility were out of shape or untrained, it seemed, except the young man guarding the child. So far no one in the group had been separated; everyone from the dinner was there, save their host and his servants – none knew what had become of the help in the kitchen, but the entrance of the serpent Ceres (bursting from the ceiling like a beast of the depths from an ocean floor, crashing into the room and shattering everything) had sent everything to hell. The candles fell to the floor, lit up the drapes which lit up the ceiling which sent the room ablaze, with hairspray and tablecloths and now-broken oil-lanterns that had been hung from the ceiling. Their host had been caught on the hellbeast's other side and lost in the chaos. It was safe to presume his death.<p>

For now the rest of them had to concentrate on getting out.

"It's too small. We're going to have to go in groups." Sir Lewenhart called to the tunnel at large. "Everyone get in a group of three. Keaton and I will take groups out; I've explained the route to him. All of you, please stay calm, stay quiet, and stay together. My daughter has volunteered her services as a guard – are we ready to move?" Scared, silent stares. A few hesitant nods. It was enough. "Good. You there, your group is first. Down the tunnel." A chill crept through the space.

Zelda watched the darkness unfalteringly, blade at rest on the ground, her hands clasped over the pommel. Time ebbed and flowed but the dark was unmoving, just faint shakes of the tunnel and stirrings of dust the only proof of passage to her eyes. Her ears betrayed another story, of softly moving feet and hushed voices at her back. Soon…

Just before the last group was led out Keaton came to her side, giving a curious look to the darkness. His hand clapped down on her shoulder. "You really grew up, huh?" He asked faintly, eyes watching the dimness they'd escaped from. Funny how they hadn't had time to catch up at the party. Zelda shrugged.

"I guess so." He made a thoughtful noise, patting her shoulder once more before turning around. "Your dad's already out – lady Griselda said something about needing a hand with the last group, and he stayed with them. You'll cover the back?"

"Let's go." She stood up, giving a final look to the darkness before drawing her temporary blade from the earth and pivoting toward the tunnel out. Keaton was giving her a curious stare. "What is it?"

"Nothing, just… I expected you to be the one to wield the sword." He said faintly, and Zelda frowned.

"I am wielding the sword." She reminded him. Keaton smiled and shook his head, murmuring 'don't mind me' just under his breath, walking over to the last group – a pair of old ladies, ambassadors. He gave a gentlemanly flourish and said 'after you' and they tittered and accompanied him down the tunnel. As they were going, Zelda heard wing beats and let her steps slow until the man who melted from darkness had materialized beside her, while Keaton and his charges disappeared around a corner.

"What are you doing here?" She murmured, ears perked for the sound of anything behind them in the tunnel.

Demon shrugged. "Monsters. I've always been drawn to them. … wasn't expecting so many people trapped, I've got to say."

"No fire escapes on the floor we started on. Something about ruining the architecture," She told him dryly, turning the corner and listening to the relative quiet, the sound of Demon's wings rustling against themselves, and the soft noises of Keaton and the old ladies' footsteps.

Demon opened his mouth to say something (probably 'that's _stupid'_) when the ground shook, the torch lights in the tunnel flickered, and the relative silence was murdered.

* * *

><p>Ceres's body thrashed and writhed, crashing into walls like she'd gone mad, arms flailing, eyes lit in ire. Her claws had left Link's body covered in long wounds and she'd nearly been crushed several times now by the berserking beast. Ceres screamed and focused on Link again before lashing out – Link screamed too and scrambled, and the tail that had been whipping to grab her contented itself with whipping her legs so she stumbled. Claws raked over her face and Ceres pinned her in a second, wresting her blade from her fingers and tossing it across the room – something that had happened far too many times in this battle - before dragging herself and her unwilling captive up, until she towered above the floor again and Link's face was about level with her stomach. Link coughed – the way her tunic's collar was twisted in Ceres's fingers left little room to breathe, and she was choking. Ceres was snarling at her, raising up her wicked claws and bearing her teeth, when she screamed out in pain and confusion once more. Link was confused too, because she'd raised no dagger – had none. Hers had been lost in the long coiling body of the snake, sunk in for a cheap escape. Pity.<p>

The eerie eyes of the snake lady focused on something over Link's shoulder and she shrieked and snarled her outrage.

The motorcycle rider scowled right back, facing the snake unguarded, defiance in every line of his body, and one hand still resting on the hilt of a blade sunk into Ceres's long tail.

But Link didn't look back at him. Silent and stunned, Link stared at the mirror on Ceres's belly.

* * *

><p>There were really some things you never wanted to walk in on.<p>

Some kid (barely-young adult) about to be choked out and murdered by a vicious beast was one of them, but he was the kind of guy who made do with what he had. It felt right somehow, the way his wakizashi sunk into the flesh of the snake. Her screams echoed around them, pulsing sound and bitter symphonies… and he noticed the lighting of the room reminded of underwater, the motions of the twisted light adding to the beat. He supposed it was in the designs, or perhaps a spell for atmosphere. Now wasn't really the best time to wonder…

He stared back at the snake and considered how many slices and stabs it would take before the shebeast would release her captive or better, succumb to death. He saw the person in her hands twitch faintly, breathes coming fast and hard and not-at-all regularly. The serpent was choking them with her hold… He ripped out his knife and was just about to sink it back in when everything froze, but the music in his ears kept moving.

Darkness was swirling up from the floor…

And wrapping around Link like a pillar.

* * *

><p>"What the hell was that?" Zelda demanded from where she was being clutched to a coughing and startled Demon's chest.<p>

"… I think the snake… hit the wall." He mumbled, a little stunned, then glanced around. "Is everyone… Oh, hell. Is _anyone _in here?" His voice echoed back to them, and a little more dust fell on their heads, along with a few annoying pebbles that bounced off like cartoons. The large pile of rocks blocking the straight route out from the tunnels seemed to mock them. Keaton and the old ladies were, perhaps thankfully but certainly unnervingly, gone from their sight. Just… gone. Far too quickly…

Zelda stood up with a grimace and wondered if that would be the first _and _last time the place tried to cave in on them. To be more accurate, she hoped it would be the last.

"They were far enough ahead of us… they should be fine." She forced her voice to come out strong. _As long as more rocks didn't fall ahead and crush them, _she thought, but didn't say it. It wasn't as if Demon wasn't thinking it, she could see the ways his eyes flashed and narrowed. In all hopefulness, they were further from the source, so the vibrations would've been weaker than the ones above Demon and she… and she also knew they couldn't do anything if Keaton and the women _had_ been buried. So she had to think the others were fine until they made it out. Or… she wouldn't leave. She was sure she couldn't. Instead she held out a hand to Demon. "We still have to get out of here, right?"

He nodded and grasped it, in the back of his mind wondering if Link was okay. He'd grown rather fond of the kid… it would be a crying shame if anything happened to him. "Yeah. Let's go." Zelda pulled him to his feet.

* * *

><p>Black flames licked up her skin, devouring everything. Morals, thoughts and rationality… Every shred to feed the flames of irrational desire and the sense of black rage, writhing darkness begging for release from its chains to rip apart the world.<p>

A thousand screaming faces and an eternity of lost souls stared out from the mirror, eyeless corpses with insipid, rotting flesh, maggot-eaten eyes, jaws locked in a death scream. Malintention and lingering hate fueled the fires, swallowing her up from the inside, the raging inferno of hell. Thoughts were stripped away along with anything but the screaming. Even the desire to live was overwhelmed by frothing rage.

The skin on her hands was black as night before the darkness drained to sweet bone-white.

Claws ran from the tips of her fingers.

Her lips slipped up in an expression she neither knew nor thought to tame – teeth like jagged bones or the rocks at the bottom of a hundred foot fall were bared with darkest desire for everything.

The serpent herself recoiled at them.

The mastersword burned in her fingers, half-drowned cries reaching her ears through a mire of filthy water – she squeezed the handle tighter, 'til the cries of the dead at long last grew to fade. The black hatred continued to bubble, and she drew back the blade.

Ceres screamed.

Warm blood shattered the film covering reality and made time rush forward again, and Link danced her blade across the snake beast's body. The ropes binding it were hacked away and the dark-swirling-screaming mirror hit the floor.

For the first time in centuries, a living being's screams drowned out its own.

* * *

><p>Black rushed together like metal sand to a magnet, sliding over the youth's body like murky water or perhaps a mire of dark shimmering silk.<p>

As he and Ceres looked on – one in astonishment and the other in dawning horror – the body in black convulsed slightly, and the darkness ripped away at Ceres until she recoiled, shrieking in pain and confusion at her dark mirror's betrayal.

A hand coated in swirling mire rose in beckoning. In an instant the black whipped away to flesh like a fresh-drained corpse's, and twin red eyes in the still-benighted face gleamed out like bloody, horrible rubies. The color wasn't dark enough to call garnet just yet…

The blackness continued to drain and sunk into the before-blond hair like ink. Everything, darkness.

The young lady raised up her head to give a feral smile, more tooth and threat than mockery, and in a heartbeat she was ripping into Ceres – not with her sword, but with her _bare fingers. _

Left to bear witness, he stay stricken, and heard a slow-bubbling laughter rise up in her throat. Like too much blood in a goblet it spilled over, every high, sweet noise a death-threat or vile curse. It could barely be heard overtop her once-attacker, now-victim's continuous begs and screams.

"Save me, save me, save me!" Was wailed in garbled hylian from the snake's too-long tongue, high and grating and saccharine for the ears to behold. Desperation shimmered in her eyes, and he thought that if snakes like her could she'd be crying at the agony. The red-eyed girl kept tearing into her body – long, sharp flicks of the claws spilled innards over the room, scored-off scales and long strips of flesh when Ceres tried to defend herself.

Cere's screams echoed louder, in terror, when the ropes binding the mirror to her severed and it clattered to the floor… a worthless relic.

The Darkness ripped into her with greater vigor, and he supposed that she was relishing the pleas and desperate writhing of her prey.

A sickening crack and squelch and ungodly cry, and he had to jump out of the way. A bloody bone clattered to the floor where he'd stood. It… was a rib.

* * *

><p>"Are you sure this is the way out?"<p>

"Not really, no."

"No- _then why did you bring me down it?_"

"Because it seemed better than standing still?"

"What's that, because it seemed like possibly getting us into deeper trouble seemed like a better idea?"

"Well _excuse me, princess, but in case you haven't noticed __**we are stuck in a goddamn tunnel.**_ I plan on seeing the light of day once more before I die for good, thank you very much." That place had been begging to cave in completely. At least they were well-enough away from that… Demon frowned while Zelda huffed and walked ahead.

Most people found their differences dissolved in life threatening crises to make way for cooperation, teamwork - perhaps even marginal friendliness. Zelda and Demon found they were much more suited to bickering like children when their lives were in danger. Whether that was because they couldn't take their own safety into account in the first place, or from the stress of worrying, each about their own things, remained to be seen.

* * *

><p>Link laughed - high and airy and filled with hate. It sent shivers down his spine. "Oh, come on, is that the best you have~?<p>

Pathetic." Her eyes flashed and went from manic to ice. Her lips turned down. "Really. I don't know how I was losing so artlessly before. Thinking about it makes me uncomfortable…" She tapped her chin and stared down at the quivering, mewling woman. "… I think I'm going to kill you now."

He wasn't sure what to do. The half-calculating, completely arctic expression stayed even as she raised her blade, painted as black as her nails and the blood on her body. She cocked her head, shadow-black hair falling over her shoulder. "Goodbye now." He had to do anything –

Blood splattered the ground.

* * *

><p>He stared in disbelief at his own hands. Link was giving a look of equal shock and disbelief to her shoulder, where three long needles were sunk into the skin.<p>

Red eyes flashed up to his.

She cocked her head and pursed her lips. Calculating, cold… the eyes of a predator assessing prey or preparing to kill it. "… I remember." She said faintly, watching his expression. One hand came up and her finger tapped her lips.

Ceres, still alive, lay panting and gasping. She was bleeding out. Even so… the internal damage would kill her before that long had passed.

"You…" The young lady cocked her head, "You know, it's funny; I didn't expect you to look like this. Your voice just gives a different image." She smiled at him, eyes half-lidded, and plucked out one of his needles, watching the reflection in his eyes. Her fallen foe – prey, now, _prey_ – lay there forgotten... after all, half-dead beasts were the height of boredom when they couldn't fight anymore. She stopped a few feet away, close enough to flick her wrist so the droplets flew off the metal shaft and splattered on his cheek. He felt the blood slide down at an infinitesimally slow rate.

"It's not nice to stab people, you know. Especially when they can't fight back~." She leaned into his space and smiled, and he thought he could see the reflection of death in the curve of her lips. "But… you're cute, so I'll forgive you." Red flickered blue a moment.

As discrete as he could manage, he glanced over her shoulder, toward the mirror on the ground. "… I'm cute, huh?" He was surprised he could sound so dry, actually.

"If I wasn't like this, I think I'd want you." She confessed, easy-going and amused, twirling the needle.

Cute, huh… he could work with that.

* * *

><p>The moonlight and night air were ice on his face, and he spread his wings out to relish it a second. Behind him the hylian girl stumbled out of the greater dark of the tunnels, weak coughs spilling from her lips. She sniffled and sneezed before gazing up at the moon.<p>

"Unseasonably cold lately…" She mumbled, a shiver running through her shoulders, and Demon cocked his head.

_Well, _'he'_ did escape…_ "The smoke is clearing." He observed, looking up at the moon. Zelda did, too, and she smiled. "… yeah. It is. Now, I have to get back to everyone…" She glanced around the hillside they'd emerged on. The north end of town, a hidden cave in a hill, in a place filled with them. She knew the Temple of Time was down the road, but she hadn't known about the tunnel.

… interesting. She wondered what other hazy secrets the town held.

Ah, but other matters… Even though they were out, that really was the least of their worries. "… and I suppose you have someone you need to get back to, too." Zelda flashed Demon a smile as she said it. He shrugged his shoulders.

"… I'd rather make sure he doesn't do something stupid, I'll confess. But nothing else."

"Aw." Zelda pouted.

Demon spread his wings out and took off, wondering what had become of the hero.

Alone for the first time in hours, Zelda began walking back toward the town. At the gate, a very upset Vaati met her. He'd said it was… 'bad enough when one was missing'…

* * *

><p>Ink drained back to ashy blond. The body slumped over in his arms; she was heavier than expected. Almost like a… man. He snorted, grunted and picked her up, grimacing when her face tilted into his neck, breathing softly. Not that he could do anything about <em>that… <em>he slunk through the bushes on the grounds, past a tent of mages sent to hold up the building and put out the fire, and trotted out under the light of the moon into the abandoned road. The unconscious heroine would not be found in that building.

Tied to his hip was the snake woman's mirror.

* * *

><p><strong>End chapter<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>Bonus scene~<strong>

"It's way too cold out… can't you make it a little warmer?"

"Stop complaining." A bead of water ran down his neck and he pulled the towel closer, sinking into the onsen. Long hair floated around him in clumps and stands stuck to his face and shoulders. He shut his eyes and huffed an annoyed sigh, "Honestly… to be defeated by such an amateur… ugh. I can't even bear to look at myself…"

"If it's any consolation," Vaati muttered with a grimace, wiping off his forehead, "That snake woman, Ceres? He completely _murdered_ her."

"He?" Gufuu sat up a little straighter, eyes flickering open. His long tongue flicked out a moment like a snake's. Vaati waved it off.

"Ah… just an odd theory of mine. If anything comes of it I'll… tell you right away." He nodded to accentuate.

Gufuu's tongue slithered further out, waving toward him, before he retracted it completely. His eyes narrowed and he rested his head in his hand. "Be sure you do." He murmured, before his eyes flit shut and he leant backward, tilted his face to the ceiling, and sunk into the bath.

_Power… fuck, yes, power. That's what got me into this, right?... And now I've got it. Thanks to... him._ Vaati scowled and glanced away. _Zelda, Keaton and that guy got caught up in the crossfire, though… I don't like this. That man… what's he planning? What does he want to use us for? … perhaps I should've made a better devil-deal… _

"Vaati?" He jolted and looked up. Gufuu's unsettling eyes were fixed on him again. "Don't keep things from me. I can read your heart." Vaati cringed while Gufuu's eyes flickered like the lightning of a baleful storm, "We serve the one who owns the mirror. Don't forget that."

Raindrops shattered against the windows behind them. Vaati hissed as he remembered. "Yeah… you know, I think Ceres had the mirror… so what happens if the one who owns it, or his servants, no longer hold it…?" His eyes flicked to Gufuu curiously. Wouldn't it be so nice to keep the power without paying the piper, afterall…? But he doubted the real result was something so gracious and charitable. Tantalizing dreams aside, he'd assume this was a horrible issue, and reacted accordingly.

A few feet away, Gufuu's lips twisted in a smile. "… come here." He murmured, raising one hand up to gesture 'closer'. Vaati flinched, but slowly obeyed. A clawed hand wrapped around his forearm and gently pulled him down, sitting on the edge of the bench, between Gufuu's long legs. The hands of the demon wandered over his back, languidly rubbing. Betrayed by his tense body, Vaati began to relax.

"… what happens if someone else has it…?" He wondered again, hazy, and feeling as though he was either giving Gufuu exactly what he wanted, or putting a noose around his own neck. They weren't always mutually exclusive of each other, either…

Gufuu's thumbs flicked gently over the bottom of his shoulder blades, where the wings' skin connected to his back's, and Vaati squeaked and shivered. "Then, if that has happened, my naïve little minish…" Gufuu crooned against his neck, "Then we could be free." He ran his claws down Vaati's spine and delighted in how it caused another shiver.

"… Fr… free, huh…?" Vaati murmured, shivering from the cold the steam should've warded off. Gufuu smiled against his neck.

Icy sleet pounded the windows outside.


	9. The bird's shadow and the golden fox

**Review responses: **

SophieSynthetic: fem!Link confuses us all. I hope these next few make it up though~ =) And yes, this story will be slash. Link is a pouf. Always.

CottonCandyHaze: … *insanely happy grin* My health, you say, my dear? That makes me so happy~! Now about the stuff pertinent to the story… Oh dear! All the things you asked are secrets~ so sorry. *Xellos smile*

SilverFlameoftheWindScar: I missed you~! *laughs* Hmm… to be honest, writing Link as female is weird to me (and reading it in editing is even weirder…) but if I think of it like a gameplay gimmick (like changing age in OoT or putting on a mask in MM) it's fine. I'm glad you're adjusting, though.

Trolly's Bara-chan: … why have you not posted your review~? I read it, I know it exists… *grin grin*

Now, onward to the story! (Seriously though, much love to everyone who reviews! It's like a good whipping for me, but more happy than horribly painful!)

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 9: The bird's shadow and the golden fox<strong>

"No sign of them." Keaton reported, cradling his bloody arm. He hoped he could get it healed before he went back to Kakariko – if his roommates saw it they'd start worrying, and they were the biggest pains in the ass when they… ah, he was getting off track. So he shook his head just enough to clear the thoughts, and blinked at Demon. And as if he'd swallowed quite a foul pill, Demon was grimacing.

"… Fuck." He muttered, leaning back and dragging a hand over his face. "Great, just… fucking brilliant…"

The old ladies were fine. Keaton had shielded them with his body and gotten away with merely scratches (if one counted the bloody gash that needed stitches as a scratch, which of course he did once the stitches were _in_) so they had little more to complain about than dust on their robes. Which they'd deigned _not_ to complain about, oddly enough. They'd made off chattering to each other excitedly with a political escort. Keaton had been waiting around for Demon long after everyone else had left, though. Honestly… he had a feeling something was up. And how right he'd been; there was a would-be rescuer missing. He pushed a lock of blue hair behind his ear, grimacing when it resituated itself right in his eye. Damn it. He really should get it cut…

"I see. Well… thanks, anyway."

"I won't be in town much longer." At this, Demon paused and gave him an odd stare. Keaton shrugged it off like always. "But if I see anything I'll go straight to you."

"… thanks…" He stretched his wings and made to make off again. Keaton smiled.

"Take care."

"I'll do my best."

* * *

><p>Sometime later, somewhere across town, a phone was ringing.<p>

The ringer went once, twice, then a sleepy voice answered. _"The fu… it's seven AM…"_

"It's me," He answered shortly; and in that moment, he could almost hear the heartbeat stop on the other end of the line.

"_What?" _The voice on the other end shrieked, undeniably male even if it _was_ quite high… "_W-Where are you? Why didn't you come back? Zelda was-"_

"Something came up. Please forgive me." That would have gone on quite a bit, so he'd cut in without remorse. As for his words, they were said without the least effort to sound apologetic, while he stood twirling a key in his fingers. Even without being there to see it, the impudence was likely clear.

"… _I see… when will you be back?" _Of course, the one on the other end was too relieved, and too used to his tendencies, to feel much bother.

"Sunset, probably. Maybe earlier." His shoulders rolled back in a shrug. After a moment, he added, "I caught an injured bird, and I have to chase it out once its wing is better."

"I- what?... o… okay…" the other end clicked and the empty line buzzed. He shut his phone and glanced at the teenager sprawled over his couch in slumber.

Her breathing was labored and he knew a few ribs were broken, so he went into the kitchen to start a brew… something with a pain reliever would be good, he reflected while picking through his cabinet. The poor girl had been put through the gauntlet. Speaking of which…

Just for a moment, the scent of smoke flashed in his mind… _He watched the young man run through the door, body tense and eyes like a beast. He wondered if he'd come out alright._

_He hoped he'd come out alright._

Wasn't it funny, how a young man had gone in before him but when he'd followed minutes later, a young girl had been left in his place. Then again, he was certain that unique sword had quite a bit to do with it…

He retrieved some fresh, bloody hearts from the fridge along with a jar of blue chu-chu jelly, and stirred them into the cauldron on the fire. He decided he might as well make a few of the brew… Just in case. A soft groan came through the open door, though he paid it no mind; instead throwing in a dash of herbs. She'd been whimpering like that all night. Poor thing.

He murmured an incantation over the brew with a reverent, near-silent voice, and watched the surface of the liquid glow faintly and shimmer, before it turned red as blood spilled over the temple's white steps.

Smoke rose off the top in an eerie plume that looked almost like a skull. He ladled some out and into a bottle, corked it, and repeated the process.

Once the caldron was emptied and the flame extinguished, then fresh water tossed into the pot to rinse it, he stepped back into the living room with a bottle in hand.

* * *

><p>Link groaned.<p>

_Fuck. Have I ever hurt this much before…?_

"You're waking up?" A man's voice called, calm and thoughtful. When Link's eyes opened, red ones were peering back.

_Demon…?_

No. The hair was blue.

Link sat up, eyes widening. _Shit-!_ "The mastersword. Where-"

"Right here." The man said gently, lifting the blade –cleaned of blood and sheathed – from where it had lain. And then he gave a very gentle smile. "It's alright. You're safe, and your bag is here too." He paused, a crease forming in his brow along with a tiny frown on his lips, "Ah… but you have many injuries. Please drink this." With that, one tan hand held out what looked almost like red potion, but the color was deeper and rather strange. Link gave it a suspicious look.

"A healer personally made it for you. I assure you, it is safe and sanitary. See?" The man took it and tugged out the cork with a _pop, _sipping from the bottle and holding out his arm which, Link just now noticed, had a row of stitches over an angry-looking wound. With his other hand he quickly began to work the stitches out, to Link's bemusement and mild disgust – until he saw why. Even as the man worked, the wound began to sizzle, and closed up… "See? Safe." His host murmured, putting the bottle down on the coffee table. Link eyed it suspiciously.

"… why not just leave me at a hospital?"

The man's smile became wry. "I wasn't the one to bring you here," he admitted, "and I asked the same of that person. He said it would've been 'rather hard to explain certain things under the circumstances'. It's a small town, you know." He added softly, glancing to the side.

Link blanched and reached up to check…

No breasts. But… he'd… had breasts. He'd… oh lord. Someone had seen him. Someone had seen him up close and they had fucking recognized him-!

And… left him with some blue-haired guy? Some blue-haired guy he definitely would've remembered meeting…

His face screwed up in confusion.

The man smiled. "My name's Kafei. It's nice to meet you."

"… Link." He muttered, feeling uneasy. He gestured to the yellow fox-face fixed on the side of the man's head. "What's with the mask?" Kafei blinked at him.

"Well, yesterday I was Keaton." He said very simply, and stood up. "Please drink your potion. Your bag is beside your blade, and as far as I'm aware no one has gone through it… and, you know, you shouldn't sleep with necklaces on, right?" He added with a slightly amused smile. Link patted his neck and sure enough, the chain was still there… with half a key.

_How on earth-?_ He looked back to Kafei, who was eyeing the bloody crystal curiously.

"Interesting trinket." He commented, but Link didn't think he was the one who'd taken it. And really, who could've but Demon? After all, Demon's magic was what made and sealed it in the first place. But… did that mean Demon brought him here? Or… no, Demon would've stayed… Link thought…

Link took a curious peek up at Kafei. The man blinked back at him. "Say, um… the guy who brought me here… he didn't have _white _hair, did he?"

Kafei blinked. "Nope." He said simply, and made to brush himself off. He turned, walking through an open door into what looked like the kitchen. "I need to make a phone call." He told Link politely, and reminded him, "Potion." Link nodded and drank what remained of the elixir on the table… the flavor was peculiar, sharper and sweeter than he was used to, but he couldn't bring himself to care either way so long as it helped. His ribs felt like Kers had been playing tetherball with them.

* * *

><p>"<em>Where is where is he he said he'd be back by now he said he said he said-!"<em>

"Calm down." The eldest ordered, cutting the stream of hyperactive worrying short by snagging the male in a manic fit as he went bouncing by. He was practically bouncing _off the damn walls._ "There was likely a delay. These things happen." Majora whined at him.

"But he _said._"

"Calm." Oni repeated, holding up the spiteful one by his collar.

Majora sagged. Oni let the barest hint of a smile brush his lips as he relaxed. "If I let you go will you be calm?"

"Yes." Majora murmured, head hanging. Oni set him down. True to his word, he stayed meek and still.

Until the phone rang. Oni's eyes widened and he barely bit back a curse as yellow eyes went wild again, and then there was no more '_practically'_ about it; Majora went bouncing off the walls. Oni's lips opened in a scream that wouldn't be silent for long, "Oh, damn it-"

"KAFEI KAFEI KAFEIIII-!" He leapt for the ringing phone, while Oni leapt for him.

* * *

><p><em>Riiiing~riii- clk.<em>

There was a lot of banging and crashing and a shout of 'Kafeiiiiiii' when the phone was picked up. Kafei held it away from his ear and grimaced.

Majora had answered. Of course Majora had answered.

Some more crashing, a very virulent string of curses, another to answer it, the sound of ineffectual slapping… and then some more bitching before a slightly-panting, very stressed, but rational voice answered. _"Hello?" _

_Ah, good. He got the phone from him._ "Hey, Oni. Something… came up last night and I decided to stay for a little longer. Couldn't call you until now. Sorry." He sounded awkward, and rubbed the back of his head. While his friend mulled that one over on the other end of the line, he leaned against the balcony and watched the city. It was stone, so he needn't worry if it would give beneath his weight… the skyline was lovely. Over the ridge and hill-filled landscape, he could see the town and its walls. Inside many buildings – compact, but with two or three stories each, usually – were scattered, some clustered in tight groups and some not. Towers and noble houses dotted the edges of town alongside official buildings, and what was once a Royal summer home (the white stone and symbols of the triforce on the walls were something of a trademark, it had the design of a place to live rather than a court or tomb, and the area was known as a good place to escape the heat further south) stood out in the distance. That looked awfully like a place he'd seen before, though he'd never been here…

"… _I see._" Oni's tone was musing, probably wondering what had held him up._ "Majora wants to talk to you."_

"Put it on speaker, please." Kafei sighed. Oni grunted and he heard a click, then the voices were different than before. A whine came through the phone.

"_Kafei! You said you'd be back by now."_

"Something came up." He repeated, adding, "I'm sorry." Rather absently.

A long, low whine.

"Kers says he misses you." Kafei added just as absent of thought as before, resting his chin in his hand.

A pause. _"… he did?"_

"Mmhm." Red eyes flickered over the peaceful countryside. Though outside town, from the tower one could see for miles. Such a peaceful scene… so at odds with the grin Kafei was trying to suppress as he threw in the ending. "He said he misses his '_adorable baby brother'_ and wishes you saw each other more."

Nothing came for a few moments but sputtering (and Oni's bemused voice in the background going, "_You and Kers are brothers?")_ and since they couldn't see him, Kafei gave in to the grin._ This is so fun._

"_NO!" _Kafei held the phone away from his ear again. It rung while he grimaced but… oh, it was worth it. "_… so when will you come back?" _Majora demanded, softer than before. Kafei glanced back inside the tower. Link was adjusting a strap on his boot. The empty bottle was sitting on the coffee table. Kafei figured it had worked, because he'd been _told _Link had a broken rib and one just didn't bend over with those like it was nothing…

What a careless boy. He'd need a graceful guide… "Ah… give me a few days. I'll come back as soon as I can, promise."

"… _I'm coming to get you today._" Majora mumbled, and Kafei heard the slam of a door as he wandered away. The phone clicked. Oni's voice came through in a moment, the phone off speaker again.

"_Is everything alright?" _His tone was serious, at odds with the normal, tongue in cheek (sometimes bordering on gleeful) attitude that Kafei knew him by, and it was enough to wipe any mirth from his own expression.

"Splendid." He muttered, turning his back to the door and watching the ocean to the side, and it sounded like he meant to add 'anything but'. He threaded his fingers through his hair. "The hero has awoken."

"… _I see."_ Oni sounded thoughtful as ever, maybe a bit calculating. That could probably be blamed on living with Majora and Kafei, though. "… _Do what you will, but be sure to return to us safely."_ Was the final edict given. And then in his next words, Kafei could hear a smile… "_You know, he and I would get very testy if anything were to happen to you."_

"I know." He said. "Listen, I've gotta…"

"_Get off the phone then, idiot."_ Oni interrupted, sounding terribly amused. Back to normal, Kafei supposed… "_Take care of yourself. Goodbye, Kafei."_

"Bye." He muttered, a relieved smile lighting up his face. If Oni wasn't mad, then Majora would be fine in a few hours after all… the line went dead and he shut his phone before going back inside.

Link was twisting his wrist in front of him, eyes thoughtful, when Kafei returned. Then blue eyes looked up and saw the easygoing expression still on Kafei's lips. "Good call?" He asked wryly. Kafei flashed him a half-happy, half-relieved smile; the same he'd been wearing since he got off the phone.

"You know that one crazy protective friend everyone has? Mine's having a heart attack over where I am." He laughed softly, scratching the back of his head. "It's embarrassing and troublesome," His eyes flickered to the floor, and he added in a mutter, "But it's nice to know you're loved."

Link paused, eyes widening. "… it is." He murmured, reverent, and Kafei thought he might see what was making Demon grow attached to the boy.

He grinned. "So you understand?"

"Yeah." Link grinned back and bounced to his feet, and Kafei supposed he'd gotten his trust. People could be won over by the most obscure and simple things. It was a bit charming in its own way. "Hey, um, I know I should probably thank… whoever did bring me here," It hadn't escaped his notice that Kafei was being secretive about that, either, "and you, but I need to go home and…" Link trailed off, looking anywhere but Kafei, and he seemed to radiate awkwardness.

It wasn't really strange, though. Who would hold it against him to want to go home in the circumstances? Kafei stepped close enough to touch his shoulder, nodding when Link jumped and met his eyes again. "Don't worry. Just… you probably should go see a doctor, you know? Someone discreet. I'll walk you out and pass on your thanks, alright?"

A sweet, relieved expression crossed over Link's lips and he nodded and picked up his sword, attaching it at his hip with a length of decorative rope meant for hair. Kafei frowned, but didn't comment. They stepped out a door down the hall after Link had gathered up his pack, and opened a door leading down… and when they stepped in Link stared in astonishment at the spiraling stairs disappearing into the tower below them.

"Great bay cliffs." Kafei predicted his inquiry. "Look out the windows and you'll see the ocean. The tower was built into the cliff face to help hold it. Seems a bit… insane to me, but I'm not a mage or seer so of course it would." Link was staring out the windows as they descended.

"Uh… uh-huh…"

* * *

><p>The ocean was beautiful. A stray thought crossed his mind - that he might like to go swimming later, after everything was cleared up. Zelda would probably enjoy it if she came along. Link filed it away for later.<p>

"Do you have a way to get back to town?" Kafei wondered.

Link shrugged. "… well, no. I… don't even know how I got here, if you'll recall."

Kafei grimaced and glanced away. "Ah… right. Sorry."

"It's okay." Link assured, deciding he liked the guy. "But… how did I get here?"

"An old friend… called me up and said that they'd found you passed out, and asked if I could come help out. I didn't understand why until I got here though." Link gave him a clueless stare.

"Why?"

"Never mind." Kafei smiled and shook his head. Link pouted at being denied answers.

Before long, happily enough, they found themselves at a door, though not quite at the bottom. Kafei opened it and ushered Link out, then went over to the edge of the balcony. Long branches weaved over, around and above it from a spiraling tree not unlike the ones in the woods around the southeast end of town. "The tree is stable." Kafei assured him, "And it's a pain to climb all the way back up from the beach, and it's been so stormy lately…" He held out a hand and wondered aloud if Link could manage.

He promised he could and followed Kafei into the tree. They moved up along the great body, across giant branches that twirled over themselves in fanciful loops, until they were level with a plateau on the cliff side. Kafei dropped down from the limb he was on gently and waited for Link to follow.

Link glanced around after he hit the stone. "Cave?" He guessed wryly, and Kafei nodded.

"Someone carved a staircase out of the stone." He informed, turning around and trotting off. Link watched his gait and was reminded, somewhat, of Kers. There was quite a bit less swing to Kafei's hips though, and… Link stilled a moment. Now that he noticed… Kafei had a nice butt. Legs, too, from what he could see.

… it was nice to like guys again. Link smiled. Really, being a girl before was so strange. He was glad it wasn't permanent.

"Are you coming?"

And Link ran to catch up.

* * *

><p>"So you're from Kakariko?"<p>

"Yeah." Kafei nodded. "I came here to visit with Mr. Renado… he used to live in Kakariko, too. I've babysat Luda for him since she was a year old, so I'm…" He scratched the back of his head, directing an easygoing smile to the sky. "A bit attached, I guess you could say. A friend of the family." Link made an understanding noise in the back of his throat, glancing up at the sun to see what was so interesting. Endless blue skies touched down on the indigo-to-green sea to one side, and melded with faded mountains and towering trees on the other. Clouds danced across the atmosphere and were shredded by the icy wind that invaded their summer. The world was beautiful, but something was strange in the air. He could feel it on his skin. Whether one found it exhilarating or frightening, it was the feeling of change.

"North winds are heavy for this time of year, aren't they?" Kafei echoed his thoughts, eyes narrowed at the horizon. "I'd say 'the wheels of fate must be turning', but that seems a little ridiculous to me." He shook his head. "Perhaps I've been around the villagers too long. Their superstitions seem to be wearing off on me… and their chattiness. I apologize for my inane ramble."

"I like hearing your voice." Link replied without thinking, and wasn't startled to realize it was true. The man had a nice voice, speaking evenly and clearly… He always seemed rather serious, even when he was smiling, but his voice was soothing no matter how firm he made it. Link's own voice was higher and changed with his mood (quite unfortunate when he became stressed) and he wasn't so fond of it.

"… Is that so?" Kafei was sending him a faint but startled look. Link glanced away and laughed off the little bit of embarrassment that wanted to surface.

"Was that a weird thing to say?"

"Kind of. I don't mind." Kafei shrugged, and Link turned a bright smile to him.

Behind them in the trees, wings fluttered.

And Link wondered again what had happened to the key.

* * *

><p>He came in with the potion in hand a while later. She was still letting out whimpers and wordless pleas…<p>

When he knelt beside the couch she was whispering something, sweat beading on her face, and her fingers delicately clutched the space below her collar.

Curious – was it injured like the rest of her? – he put his hand there very gently. Between her fingers there was an odd ridge stirring with magic. She flinched a moment before sighing and relaxing, almost like she was falling into deeper sleep… he reached just beneath the collar and pulled out a key with a line down the center.

It came apart in his fingers, so he replaced the piece on the necklace and gave a thoughtful stare to the portion in his hand.

* * *

><p>The crossroads before town came up quicker than Link anticipated. They usually did.<p>

"It was nice meeting you, Kafei." Link smiled and bowed, then shook the hand he was offered.

"The same to you, Link." The warm look Kafei gave him made his smile become a grin, and he felt like he'd made a new friend. He voiced the sentiment and Kafei ruffled his hair and said that certainly, they were friends. They'd hit it off well enough.

Kafei waved to Link and shifted his Keaton mask over his face just as a dark portal opened, right there in the middle of the street. While Link looked on in disbelief a man in a brightly-colored mask came barreling out. Link blinked, but Kafei didn't seem the least bit alarmed, so he figured it was safe to keep walking – well, after he'd heard 'hello, Majora. Please get off of me,' sighed in Kafei's placid tones, at any rate.

_Wait…_ _Majora? … I had to have heard him wrong. Oh well, another day… _

And he kept going. There was a ranch along the road into town, as well… he was just passing it when he noticed someone in the pasture with the animals.

"Hey, stranger!" A girl's voice called him as he headed toward the gates, and when he looked he saw a redhead leaning against the wooden fence encircling the Lon Lon ranch. "Everyone in town's been lookin' for you." She added, and relief glimmered in her eyes. "C'mere a second, Link." And then her voice was firm.

"Yes ma'am." He echoed, half-unnerved and half-amused. Having been scolded by Malon before, there was a reason for that effect. One he understood well.

He hopped the fence, carefully avoiding any… presents the horses or heifers might have left, and obediently followed the petite girl. And he noticed Malon was at least as tall as he was.

… that didn't bode too well for him.

She was strong, though; bags of horse feed and baby beasts made sure of that. Link tried not to laugh too obviously, remembering an excited Malon running out with a young goat gathered up in her arms to show him, last year. Malon was his closest friend, barring Zelda. She was kind and sweet and didn't judge him, despite what scolding implied. She cared if he was hurting himself, he supposed, but never seemed to think he was too far from a path to be led back.

… The fact that Malon probably thought of him as one of the animals she herded and raised didn't escape him, but he understood what Kafei had meant earlier - it was nice to feel loved. Between Navi and Zelda and Malon, he got a lot of love. And with recent events, he felt like he needed a lot of love lately.

And… he hadn't told anyone about what had happened with Demon, beyond that failed attempt to convince Zelda inside the Temple of Time. Not that there were too many people who'd believe him. He also hadn't had a good talk with Malon in a while. Perhaps it was time to take care of two birds with one stone.

* * *

><p>After a quick phone call (Navi was apparently pacing in Zelda's living room worrying her head off when he'd called their phone, then Zelda's when his mother hadn't answered) to assure the other two wonderful women in his life he was fine and a warm greeting for Talon and Ingo – Talon made a joke about marrying Malon and Ingo muttered something about Talon being oblivious and Link being 'a fairy' (for the unaware, Link was only <em>half <em>fairy) Malon and he retired to the field, sitting under the shade of the shed by the watering troughs to talk.

"So what's on your mind, fairy boy?" Malon wondered, knees pulled up to her chest and a filly nibbling her hair.

Without another thought Link told her. All of it.

… She looked rather amused by the end. While he'd admit that wasn't the response he'd been expecting, he'd also admit Malon took an interesting perspective in all matters. "So, when am I going to meet this sexy demon?" She asked, eyes gleaming in mischief.

_Sexy…_ Link's brows furrowed in confusion, and he frowned. "Huh? No. There is no… wait, which demon are we talking about? And where did you even…"

"Demon. The one you literally called 'Demon'." Malon kept grinning. "You dork. When you talk about him… oh, I just know."

"How can you – he's _not-_ you're confusing me." Link complained, pouting and pointing an accusing finger. A dismissive hand pushed it away.

"Let's see, where to begin… Hm. Well, you start to glare when you talk about him, and wave your hands a lot, which only happens when you really hate someone or you're really interested in them (the hands bit, I mean, not the glaring) but if you hated the guy, I think you would have ditched him or run him through on his own sword by now."

"He scares me. I think if I tried and did that he'd either turn it back on me or just laugh." Link confessed. True to the entire conversation's form, Malon waved it off.

"Regardless." She brought up a hand to tick more reasons off on her fingers, and Link wondered if that was _'anyway when has _that_ ever stopped you?' _gleaming in her eyes. (The answer was 'when the guy is an immortal demon who protects the mastersword. … and sometimes me.') "Towards the end you were starting to sound kind of protective of him, and happy when you mentioned that he wasn't being a bastard to you all the time."

"Who wouldn't be?" Happy about that, he meant. For some reason a lot of people seemed to be bastards to him. Not all, just… a lot.

"Hush. You smiled when you said he trusted you." From there, she continued listing reasons – each more inane, bizarre and, worst of all, _correct - _well after she'd run out of fingers. And Link looked on with a dejected expression.

"… do I really have that many tells…?" He wondered, to which she answered with a nod. His eyes flickered. "… Wait. How'd any of this tell you he was sexy?"

"Besides just now when you told me?"

Link glared.

"You twitched." Malon added matter-of-factly after a moment of said glare, "When you were picturing him."

_What?_ "Malon, that could mean anythin-"

"Down there." She added helpfully, and inclined her head to indicate his nether regions. Predictable as ever, Link flushed red.

"Malon!"

"Heheh, gotcha~!"

* * *

><p><em>That girl… has to tease me about everything…<em>

Link left in even higher spirits than he'd arrived, provided he ignored the extra heat in his face. Ingo had wondered if he'd had a fever – albeit in such a terribly gruff way one might never know he cared, one way or the other. Talon had made a suspicious noise and looked at his daughter, who amusedly protested that whatever had befallen her fairy boy was no fault of hers. A great lie, that, but Talon's thoughts were a bit opposite of the truth too so Link let it slip. Let the man linger in the dark a while longer.

(… wait, Malon was laying claim on him too?)

Malon and her darling mare Epona watched him from the edge of the ranch until he was stepping through the gate into town. In the distance, he could see the Tower of Winds – the air around it swirled violently, though he could only tell from the violent whipping of large flags and banners high above the world.

Electricity crackled through the air, static when there shouldn't be. Link shivered from excitement. His blood seemed to be humming in his ears, begging him to run up to the rooftops and dive off into the endless sky, go crashing to the bottom of the ocean, become something truly free…

Humans were born into chains.

This was a fact of the world, the same as the living needing air and the dead falling to decay. But the living could hold their breath and the dead could, ever so rarely, escape the fate of rejoining the earth, and in that same vein, sometimes people escaped from the chains.

Usually to crash to the bottom of the ocean in the hourglass of time and drown.

But, to be free, wasn't it worth it?

Or perhaps that was the fairy blood that was screaming at him.

… that longing for freedom was a chain, too. Everyone was born into chains. Even man and beast with the greatest power were born into chains. The limitations of oneself or humanity, or ambition or despair. Link fingered the chain around his throat and thought about the threads of fate threatening to choke him, and smiled up into the whistling, icy winds towards the disk of the sun.

It was a challenge to a man chained to power.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter end<strong>

**For anyone who wondered (like my beta): Kafei rightly assumed he'd need to assure Link of the potion's benign nature, so he waited until Link was awake to drink it.**


	10. The bindings on your throat

**This took foreeeeever. Arc finale, people! Arc one is OVER after this~!**

**CottonCandyHaze: I think a red velvet cake with fudge icing would be nice, if we still haven't decided on that. Mmm~. Ah, you've reminded me of that *other* stuff I need to get posted… to AFF! *runs off, shouting insane things***

**arrowriver: While I can't blame you for not having faith in me (hell, I wouldn't either) there is a reason to my continued lunacy, and that is a part of it. Please, by all means, read this chapter to find out~. **

**Lalaithlen: Awww, thanks~. Eh… the pronoun change is mostly for the readers/my benefit, since I don't have pictures to go by, to remind about the whole 'different bits' thing. Link still thinks of himself as male, though. **

**Trolly'sBara-chan: PH is being meeeeeean! He's being a cheating cheater! HE HIT ME WITH THAT STUPID SWORD! *whines* **

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 10: The bindings on your throat…<strong>

People were born into chains. Sometimes, for some people, they knew about the chains from the time they were old enough to know about anything. When he was born, the chain of fate was wrapped around his throat as loose and forgiving as a noose, and every link threatened to cut into the flesh, cut off his air, still his body forevermore. He was servant to these links of fate.

He knew it from the day he was born to the day he was lead inside the temple, saw the mingled sad and cold expressions on the faces of the guardians as they lined the corridor outside the chamber. He couldn't really remember much of what they looked like, though…

"You will wait here, and aid the one destined to wield the Mastersword. Do you understand?"

The white haired one stared up at her, solemn and silent. After a moment, he nodded.

"Then sleep well. You may not wake for a long time."

And the door slammed shut behind her. He watched it until the world blurred.

* * *

><p>Wind whipped at Vaati's hair, and he leant back into it with an appreciative murmur. His head hit something emphatically <em>not<em> the air, however, and he jolted, eyes shooting wide to find Gufuu staring down at him. Long arms coiled around his shoulders before he could escape.

"You looked so relaxed a moment ago, my light. Won't you tell me what has changed?" Gufuu wondered, staring over the edge, and Vaati realized they were far too close to it for him to feel comfortable with Gufuu's arms around his throat.

"I, um… I…" Vaati whimpered when the arms tightened just a fraction, and one of Gufuu's long fingers brushed over a spot on his collarbone that was terribly sensitive for a very specific reason.

Another moment of silence, then Gufuu released him. His voice went from mild to glacial. "We have orders. I'm going to the court. You're to make a smokescreen… understand?"

"Yes." Vaati breathed, and Gufuu gave the slightest of nods.

"Good." And then he reached out, pressed, and watched Vaati fall from the edge of the building.

* * *

><p>A quarter mile from the town gate, he heard the flutter of wings. He knew what was happening when a hand caught his wrist, or he thought he knew, but the skin was warm and he couldn't bring himself to believe-<p>

"_Link!"_

-that it was anyone he should avoid seeing. Demon had him spun around and pulled up close enough to kiss - he didn't - in another moment, checking him over for injuries and frowning. But other than a place on Link's neck that he traced gently, eyes glittering with unease, he seemed to come up empty. Which… really, should seem stranger than not.

"… I…" Link took a breath. "I apologize. I passed out or something and when I woke up, well… But I had a potion, and everything's healed-" He added the second part in a hopeful tone, eyes shining-

"Never mind that!" Fresh urgency in his voice, Demon proclaimed, "We have to go, now." And his eyes flashed out of the temporary lull while he remembered what had him rushing in the first place.

With Link's wrist still in his grasp he took off running, and for a moment Link couldn't match him and stumbled over himself. They ducked and weaved through the empty streets until they were standing on the hill overlooking the overgrown field and the Tower's courtyard, the time moving in between too short and too long at once.

Winds whistled around them, whipping at their hair and speeding along their skin like knives or the talons of a monster. Blue eyes gazed up at the approaching storm front.

… Well. It seemed his challenge had been answered. At the corner of his vision, he saw Demon fingering a blade at his hip.

* * *

><p>"So you want me to fight." Gufuu rumbled. His eyes were fixed jealously on the mirror before him, long fingers twitching like he wished to reach out and snatch it away, curl it close covetously… but it remained in the other's hand and twirled like a common children's toy, just out of his grasp.<p>

"Yes." The man leaned back where he was sitting on the veranda, cool, assessing eyes not leaving Gufuu's expression for a moment. "For someone like you… it's not too much trouble, I trust."

"It's not." Gufuu echoed, "For a price." And his eyes flicked up to the red-brown eyes of the man in the chair.

He only smiled and twirled the mirror again. "I would never ask for more. Take out the hero and the guide, and this mirror is yours. But don't blame me if the state of it isn't what you are expecting…" He added, softer, eyes glimmering like the surface of deep, dark water.

"I would never." Gufuu's tone was saccharine. His guest continued to smile, twirling blond hair on one finger in an unusually girlish gesture.

"Oh, but one more thing." The man added.

Gufuu froze. "What is it?"

"I don't want the hero _dead._" He intoned, the strange faint smile making his tone lilt. He had a pleasant voice. Too bad his words were so terrible, really…

_Ah… _Gufuu caught on quick enough. Vaati would ask for something similar, he knew… had asked for something similar. But he'd lost. "I'll see what I can do." Gufuu promised. The man and his smile never abandoned their sweetness, and his voice was a croon.

"See that you do."

* * *

><p>"So how'd you find me?" Link demanded as they ran, pushing through the overgrown fields.<p>

Demon glanced back. "Kafei called me. I was coming to get you from him when you went into that ranch.

Link felt his mind draw a blank. _So Demon did-? _"You know Kafei?"

"Kind of. You could say I know him by proxy." He groaned and shook his head, "Don't ever disappear like that again. You have no _idea_ how worried I was!"

_Or he didn't. He just knew Kafei. Odd… _"Oh." Link blinked, and continued running. "So what exactly is going on?" _… wait. Did you say you were worried about me?_

"Gufuu's reappeared. He's creating a storm… and this is your chance to take him down."

"Gotcha." It did explain why they were rushing toward the Tower of Winds. And why the streets of town were, again, deserted sans monsters. Damn Gufuu. It was the middle of the afternoon, too…

A sigh wanted to spill out of his lips, but they were running. Oh well. Perhaps later then.

"Hey, Demon?"

"What?"

"Did you just say you were worried about me?"

Demon turned his head to stare at Link, and they almost crashed into the lone tree in the field. Demon swore and turned away again, veering off to the side to miss it. "Can we talk about this later?"

"Uh… yeah." Link mumbled, as the chateau's gates came into view again.

* * *

><p>"It hurts… it hurts…" Vaati keened, doubled over while Zelda worried her lips between her teeth. She probed the broken wing gently, cooing alongside him at the damage. It was… bad. Messy.<p>

"Shhh, shh, we'll call an ambulance-"

"_No!"_ Vaati shrieked, and Zelda jumped back. His eyes shot open and locked with hers, wide and terrified. "No… no, then mother will know… and I…" A hiccupping choke, "Please, you can't. Just bring me a potion… please, Zelda…" He keened in pain, his uninjured wing straining behind him. Zelda felt her resolve melt. She had to help him… and he'd looked so worried…

"Alright." She whispered, and smoothed his hair with one hand. "Stay here. I'll be right back; I think we have some back at the house if the corner store's out."

And she stood up and ran out of the little cove of trees. Vaati slumped to the leaf-strewn floor, panting with his hair stuck to his face by sweat. He ached and bled, and he was exhausted….

As a bead of sweat ran down his cheek, he smirked.

* * *

><p>Demon's hand came to clutch his shoulder, and they stopped just outside the gate.<p>

"What is it?" Link murmured, eyes flickering back. Just above the sound of the wind, he could hear groaning…

"Redeads." Demon murmured back, and Link wondered how he could have ever forgotten that sound. Demon reached into a bag at his hip and pulled out a blue sweet-potato ocarina.

_So he plays, huh? _Link marveled at the quality craftsmanship, while Demon grimaced at the item in his hands. "Not quite to my taste, but such is the nature of our situation." Was his resigned murmur, before he brought it to his lips and blew.

A quick song spilled out from the ocarina, three notes played twice over… Then warm light broke from the clouds above them and the groans stopped, and Link's hand came up to clutch at his arms; he felt terribly cold. Demon let go of him and moved through the suspicious, open gate into the chateau's courtyard. Link stepped after him and stared at the frozen corpses lining the entryway.

Something had… Oh. The song. Something about that song Demon played had done this, Link was sure. He would have to ask him about that later. Music that could change the weather and freeze monsters… or perhaps it was just redeads? He wondered, fingers itching for a book.

Demon was leading him, wings perked, leaning forward and moving quickly – too quickly, almost like he was possessed. The way his eyes gleamed was unnerving. "Faster." He urged Link, who broke into a short run instead of arguing.

"You alright?" Link wondered, and those manic red eyes swept to him.

"I feel empty." Demon murmured, "And… the thing that will fill me up again is so close…" His eyes shot back to the path ahead of them. He seemed… hungry.

Though he wanted to stall and wonder, Link forced himself to keep pace.

"… sorry I didn't bring the Garo mask." Demon mumbled a minute or two later, as they rounded a corner. The garden was like a maze, tall green hedges and trellises of black thorns and brambles edging their path; organized, threatening chaos. A devil's garden.

And who maintained it, exactly?

Link shook his head. "Garo mask?" He echoed, forcing his mind away from perfectly maintained hedges.

"… never mind." Just then, they stepped out into the center. An undersized tower of stone, covered in soft moss and climbing ivy, stood in center, with a wall of the same stone curving behind it and hedges obscuring the lower parts of the wall from view. An achingly familiar mirror with new stains that were either rust or blood was hung at eye level on the tower, gleaming merrily in the sun that had broken out of the clouds alongside Demon's song. Stairs curved around the tower's outside, and on the steps in front of them, waiting above their heads with fire in his eyes, was Gufuu.

Link drew the sword and remembered that he didn't have the other half of the key.

Demon swore. The Wind Tyrant smiled.

* * *

><p>The metal was heavy in his hands and drug at his limbs like he was fighting underwater, down at the bottom of the tidal stairs again.<p>

Gufuu swam through the air like a desbreko, fire-weaving words spilling from his lips like ecstasy and prayers, and they begged for Link's destruction with all the sweetness of birdsong and tiny doves in the morning sun. He called down crashing wind and baleful flame, icy rain and deadly hail – Demon was on the wall, glaring bloody murder, ready to step in if any real damage were to come to Link but otherwise bound as a spectator to the bloody sport before him.

He was on edge since last night. Almost enough to leap in himself whether or not Link needed it, really…

And Link was certain Gufuu had taken note of it. It was damn near impossible to strike him – the devil would let him get close, teasing and sharp and then blow away on the wind when Link dragged the mastersword through the air to strike him, taking cheap shots as he went. Link was bleeding from his shoulder and hip thanks to several of them. He wondered how long Demon would stay still and silent, thought perhaps Gufuu might like to find out.

Gufuu had had plenty of chances to end this, yet he chose to drag it out. Link didn't dare think that was a saving grace though – from what he knew of the Wind Tyrant, it was more damning than a hellfire curse.

Sunlight glinted through the clouds a moment and struck off something bright enough to blind him. Link choked as he staggered back, blades of wind ripping into him. His eyes watered as he focused on the black shape hanging from the tower…

_Wasn't the mirror broken?_

He couldn't know why he knew that, but he did. That mirror should be shattered to pieces and burnt up in the building. He knew it sure as the moon's rise and fall. The dark mirror should be…

_No. I didn't break it, I ripped it away. _The back of his mind whispered, and for a moment he could swear there were teeth beside his ear and breath on his neck. _Feel the power dripping from it… _Ghost hands played along his back, unseen lips brushed the shell of his ear.

_Don't you wonder what would happen if it-?_ The malevolent voice whispered, but its dulcet poison was cut off before they reached the end.

Gufuu sent a fire spell at him and Link leapt out of the way, charging for him with sword swung back for a blow.

"You can't beat me." Gufuu hissed, throwing out his hands – a wave of hellfire erupted from his fingertips and chased Link down, making him scream as the heat ravaged his body, but he didn't burn…

No. And then Gufuu's hands were above him. "You're no hero."

_No. _

"Link!" Demon shouted, and when Link turned his head - against better judgment - to look the guardian tumbled off the wall, backwards and out of sight. Gufuu's claws dug into his skin, and Link shoved his hands into his chest, frantic and sweating while he tried to separate them once again.

He cast Din's fire and Gufuu shouted and veered back so Link could finally squirm away. Running around the corner, he pressed himself to the wall and tried to catch his breath. A length of darkness was coiled around a squirming, cursing Demon… with an uncomfortable swallow, Link realized it was choking him. He swung the mastersword and watched the darkness burn away while the guardian recoiled. "Behind you," he gasped, tan hands flying up and clutching his throat while something else shimmered over his body, and Link twisted and swung the blade again just in time to catch Gufuu's ribs.

He grunted and screamed, but after Link pulled out the blade the sundered fleshed healed almost immediately. There was no blood, only wisps of darkness…

"You'll have to do better than that," The violet devil murmured, and lunged for Link's throat.

* * *

><p>Everyone in town was out of potion. Everyone. Zelda couldn't believe it. The last place she was heading to was a potion ship owned by an old woman… And she was headed there last because it was the place furthest from where she needed to <em>be<em>. It was half a mile south of town and difficult to reach on the best days. Today was not even a _good_ day as far as Zelda was concerned.

_Damn it… _She cursed and leapt over another wall, tossing a knife at a snake that lunged for her. She yanked it back out on her way by and made a note to wash it as soon as she could… but Vaati was more important. _How could he break his wing? Poor thing… and he's back there by himself, too… this isn't good… _

She cursed again as the shop came into sight.

_This isn't good at all…_

* * *

><p>From beside the wall, Demon grimaced and clasped his throat. <em>Shit…<em> Link fell back and dodged the bursts of fire and wind – barely, just barely dodging the blades of wind, and his clothes were getting singed… - while Gufuu seemed to be the same as before, no matter how Link struck him.

"Now I see what he meant." Gufuu rumbled, eyeing the mastersword while their fighting fell into a lull, circling slowly about one another.

Demon felt another wave of agony ripple through his body, and he forced himself to his feet. He swayed and hit the wall.

_What the hell is happening to me…? _Unbidden, his eyes flickered to bright glass._ The mirror?... it can't be…_

… _right?_

"_Link,_" Demon gasped, then tried to make it louder, "Link! The mirror! Break the mirror!"

Link sent him a confused look and almost had his hair burnt off for it. "Uh… you too?" He wondered, then yelped at another wind blast before taking off.

Demon noticed a sudden grin unfolding on Gufuu's face, and he didn't like it at all.

_Yes, hero… _it seemed to croon,

_Break the mirror._

* * *

><p>The monsters swarming the front didn't see her coming.<p>

She yanked the dagger out of the tektite with a loud 'squelch', whirling around and lunging at the other beasts as they came out of their startled states. The man who ran the potion shop sometimes jumped back, blurting out startled pleas of 'save me save me' and Zelda tore into another beast, eyes burning. She didn't have time for any of this.

Not that the universe gave much choice in such matters. No, not much at all, she thought while cleaning up the last of the little mob that had been accosting the shopkeeper.

She took out a rag to wipe off her blade and turned to the trembling, wide-eyed man after she'd finished. Zelda cocked her head and remembered her manners, giving a swift curtsy, careful not to grasp the squelchy spots of monster blood on her tunic. "Excuse me; I don't suppose you have any blue potion in stock…?" She inquired, hopeful.

"B-back room." He stuttered, still staring at her. She smiled, offered him a hand and politely asked to be shown the way, and added that time was very much of the essence.

And the shopkeeper was quite the gentleman; he was very quick to show her after that.

* * *

><p>Without knowing what it would do or why, Link leapt around Gufuu – who, he noticed, seemed to be trying to hit him just as little as before – and slammed the hilt of the mastersword into the mirror's center.<p>

For a moment, water rushed into his ears, and he heard from outside the ocean's barrier a thousand souls screaming in agony and release. Another heartbeat and the gem in the mastersword's hilt glowed blue, and the world returned to how it once was, every being free of the liquid embrace that froze or slowed them… Link leaned forward, continuing the motion. Shards of glass flew by his ears and clattered to the ground in a spray of sharp and pretty dust.

Gufuu screamed, and his body glowed red, but his lips twisted as if in ecstasy.

The world turned blue and crimson.

* * *

><p><em>You broke the mirror .<em>

_It shows… the darkness of men's hearts._

The girl's voice came as if through a filter, and Link cocked his head to listen closer.

_Gufuu… was controlled…_

… _Contained…_

_By the mirror. You have freed Gufuu. _

And Link stood and wondered, _Is that a good thing… _

_Or… _

_Not?_

Blue flashed in the ether, and the girl answered, _in a moment you will find out._

And a wave crashed over him just as the blue eyes of the sword-spirit shimmered into focus. He wondered if he'd ever see her whole face. The water twisted, whirled around his unresisting limbs, and washed him away like he'd never existed at all.

* * *

><p>His wings were still trickling blood slowly – little <em>dripdropdripdrops <em>to fill his mind and pass the time, to make him nervous of what should happen if it didn't grow slower. Zelda was still gone, and while he lay in the shade of a bay tree he smiled and thought that, just perhaps, their plan had been a little… too perfect. After all, if he kept bleeding…

_Dripdropdripdrop_

… he would most certainly die. But Gufuu was dealing with it. He'd promised to take care of everything. And while it was perhaps unwise to trust a demon, Gufuu seemed to want to keep him alive… he needed to keep him alive. So Vaati chose to believe he'd be saved, by Zelda's caring hands or the master of their plan, if not Gufuu himself. He just… would have to wait until then.

He hoped it wouldn't be much longer.

_Dripdropdripdropdripdropdrip-_

All the sudden, the aches that kept him from shifting warmed and sent a shiver thrilling through him, like lips and tongues on his wings – _oh, _at once a wave of ecstasitic pleasure washed across him, hot as a demon's kiss and just as insistent, tongues of desire delving deep into his mind. He writhed on the ground, heedless of wounds, mewling as waves of satisfied pleasure rushed through him, the crashing tide at noon or a fire that devoured everything.

His gasps and pants filled the clearing and his broken wing smeared blood on the ground, and through ecstasy-hazed eyes he panted and wondered what had happened to make Gufuu so terrifically euphoric on the other side.

* * *

><p>Screaming filled his ears for just a moment.<p>

Gufuu began to laugh as the world came into focus again, eyes glowing with glee and magic. "Oh, I have to thank you, little hero! But don't get the wrong idea…! My thanks will be beating you within an inch of your life, no more. It's just that first I'm going to take care of that troublesome guardian…" He chuckled and took off, laughing harder when Link did the same –headed for Demon, eyes wide, sword ready to rip into Gufuu at the first chance given.

Demon was on the ground behind the wall; the glimmer from before had unveiled its true purpose. His body was bound by pages upon pages of words – ancient Hylian, Sheikah and Minish bled together, scrolling across his skin. Light spells scrawled across the pages of an old library, binding flesh and magic, and Link saw the words 'hold restrain destroy block **no escape**' in the waterfall of spells across the devil's body.

Demon hissed and spit, writhing within his bondage like a trapped beast, hellfire in his eyes and fangs agleam. Gufuu only laughed at his spitfire, rearing back to strike while Link leapt to tear at the bonds, forcing his body overtop Demon's to shield him.

The devil himself couldn't have been less grateful. An enraged howl bubbled up in the guardian's throat, directed at none other than the hero trying to save him. "Link!" Demon hissed, eyes wild, "Link **stop!**"

Link kept going, fingers desperately tearing at paper, catching nothing, tingling from the flashes of magic, but the bindings held strong and only made his skin blister and bleed. He kept going while snarls bubbled up in the guardian's throat, and Gufuu's chuckles and the dull, burning hot magic of his spell grew behind them.

"Stop that! Link, either take up your sword or _**get out of here!**_" Demon howled, bucking him off and then glaring down Gufuu as though he weren't bound and helpless on the ground. Link hit the earth hard, grunted and scrabbled to his feet, and realized he had _no fucking clue _where the sword was.

"I admire your tenacity, but there really is no use." The Wind Tyrant crooned, raising his hands, "You're going to die, fickle child, and there is just no avoiding it."

A flash of blue and red and black like bruises and nightshade skin and Link was back in the water-painted room, fighting the serpent.

_She _was darkness, night across her skin and flowing through her fingers, and called the blade back to her. She was master of the blade.

The sword would always come to her.

_The sword will always…?_

Demon snarled while Gufuu laughed, glaring without fear or hesitance into the face of death. The wind demon swung down his hands and let the spell go, ready to let another territory spat end with his opponent a bloody splotch on the ground, when flashing brilliant white streaked across his vision for a heartbeat's fickle eternity.

He _howled _while Link swung the sword again, planting himself firmly before the bewildered but still-unharmed Demon. Gufuu's spell leapt off the blade alongside his blood, both flashing to crash into an old wall to their side.

The wall cracked and crumbled.

Link's eyes were ice and torrential storms, foggy hell's fire, the rage of an ocean about to swallow him whole.

His breathing was ragged and blood ran down his body while he held the blade before him. He reminded him of someone from long ago… in a way, the boy was almost beautiful.

A better actor in their play than the guileless Link, he didn't let the thoughts show. Instead Gufuu threw his head back and glared. "You'll stand against me, mortal?"

"You ever touch him again and I'll fucking cut out your heart." Link promised, sword shifting so the sun glimmered off it with menace, while grim anger flickered in the eyes of the hero. Gufuu's lips curled.

"Very well." He crooned, and rushed toward what might be his death again.

* * *

><p>"Vaati! Vaati, I have the potion!" Zelda called as she hurried into the clearing, then choked on her tongue as she saw him - Vaati was rolling about the forest floor writhing and howling bloody murder. It was a miracle she hadn't heard him before-!<p>

"It hurts it hurts it hurts-!" He shrieked, twisting against the ground, further dirtying and damaging the wing. Zelda rushed to hold him steady, held the potion to his lips, but no matter how she soothed or cajoled as the potion worked to ease his suffering, he did not stop screaming.

* * *

><p>Link was a portrait of beauty when he was enraged.<p>

His hair flew around him in the rushing wind; the specks of blood and dust scattered on his visage couldn't hope to hold it down. Blue eyes raged with the wrath of a water dragon and all its tempests.

Gufuu was caught between entrancement and enragement. So this was the new hero… he wondered if 'she' (of course, now he knew it was a he) could really be worthy of the sword in his hands when they'd met.

Now it seemed they were a bit closer to the answer 'yes'; the thought occurred just as the boy rushed at him.

Without the unleashed sword… while it doubtlessly dragged at his limbs like water and sapped his strength… he swung and fought like a young war god, his body shaking, sucking in greedy gulps of air to a heaving chest, muscles quivering - tensing and untensing to the beat of a song neither could hear but both should move to.

A movement at the corner of his eye told him Demon was coming unbound once more – it wasn't a surprise, they'd known before the battle the spells wouldn't hold him long. He had too much power…

Power one day, the hero would match.

Troublesome.

Gufuu cast another spell. If the boy wasn't worthy… well, the contract was broken alongside the mirror. From here on out, it was personal. If the boy wasn't worthy, he'd just kill him.

It's not like he'd be the first one.

* * *

><p>Link howled. Rage pounded through him, made him half blind. His charge was met with a fluid stroke of pale-grey fingers and he barely leapt back in time to avoid being burnt up in the flames of Gufuu's starfire curses.<p>

Gufuu came at him this time, intentions of letting him bleed dry clear in his eyes. Link raised his sword – shouted against the barrage of wind and flame, held his blade to shield him. The metal burned his fingers and Gufuu laughed, and Link poured his will and his rage and his fear into the blade.

It thrummed underneath his fingers.

_End this. _A thousand voices wreathed around him and whispered, lent strength to his battered limbs. _End this. Make him bleed. _So he leapt forward after Gufuu stopped letting words fall out of his lips, and he did.

His boots thudded on the pavement. Metal sunk into the flesh and strong bone… Gufuu screamed as the metal slid between his eyes, but he was dead. His knees hit the ground and conceded to his conqueror's feet.

While Link panted, watching with half-cold, detached eyes the bubbling blood dribble down his face to dissolve in wisps of darkness, the clearing went quiet and the storm clouds cleared.

* * *

><p><em>Ah… my beloved… is it time for me to be beside you, yet? <em>He wondered in the blinding light.

"_Gufuu?"_

He jumped. He wasn't expecting anyone to answer. Hair as long and lovely as Link's shimmered into existence, along with a pair of curious eyes that quickly went cold.

"_It's not your time yet, Gufuu." _She chastised him softly, eyes burning like a meteor's fire – so hot they felt like ice. He laughed.

_I lived so long ago… you recall when our swords met in battle. How can you say it is not my time?_

"_It is not your time."_ The woman scolded again, and beckoned him forward. Her graceful fingers came to rest on his forehead, calloused by a lifetime defending a hero and a sacred child. _"You aided Vilink. You shall aid this one, too, before your time is done."_

_Then… after-?_

His painfully hopeful voice was cut off mid-question. The world faded before she could answer him, if she would. _It's not your time yet… _he hated those words.

* * *

><p>"Thank you." Link was surprised when a warm pair of arms wrapped around his shoulders. Half-numb fingers came up to grasp it, and he wished to fall into sleep forever, but he didn't think his eyes would shut just long enough. Outside the fickle-grey world of his head, Demon was smiling. Link could see the curl of his lips underneath the bandages, while his eyes were as warm as the sunlight falling down around them. He squeezed for a moment before letting up and backing off, though his rough fingers lingered on Link's left shoulder. "Really… I… you didn't have to do that." He murmured, appreciation lacing his tone.<p>

It was so strange Link couldn't help but stick his tongue out to try and shatter it. "I'll do whatever I want," He mumbled, sour, and Demon only laughed.

"I'm really starting to like you." He confessed, mussing Link's hair and causing him to squawk.

"Don't do that! It's bad enough since I lost my hat Zelda's been picking on me about my hair, now I'm gonna go back and she'll see it like _this _and chew me out about that-!" Y_ou just murdered someone and you're worried about that? _Some part of his mind wondered, and he went quiet.

"Your hair was already messed from the fight!" Demon laughed.

"_Shut up." _He mumbled, but something about his broken feelings seeped into the words and Demon caught on, and looked concerned.

"Link…"A low groan interrupted him, though, and they both froze. Before disbelieving eyes, Gufuu's corpse stirred from where it was laying on the tower steps.

Slowly, he sat up, the blood droplets from his forehead sluicing to the ground and then evaporating from their little puddles like they'd never been. Drowsy, half-comprehending red eyes gazed out at them between grime-stained strands of white hair.

Slow and shaky, legs quaking and hand braced on the wall for strength, Gufuu stood. His eyes were set far off and his lips cracked up in a smile while he touched the spot where moments before, his forehead had been split open like a melon.

He was mouthing something, but Link and Demon – who had pulled Link close to his chest, wings flared out in menace – soon realized he wasn't whispering a spell. Finally, the rough-cracked voice of a man half-dead came bubbling up in his throat, and never before had Link thought that being half-dead could be like asking if a glass was half-empty.

"… worthy." Gufuu finished the otherwise-unintelligible mumble, looking proud of himself for getting it out.

"… What?" Demon wondered, and Gufuu gave a wider smile. He raised one hand to point at Link.

"A worthy successor." He rasped, eyes glowing. Link stared back at him in confusion. _But I… I killed you…_

Light flashed at the corner of their eyes, and they all turned to look accordingly - with Gufuu's blood still running down his body.

From the shards of the broken mirror a black dust was drifting up. Just for their half-believing gazes it became the silhouette of a man with only his eyes illuminated; eyes that burned with vilest fire, yellow as the belly of a viper or the venom from its fangs.

"Mage Gufuu. You have failed me…" His ominous voice rung out over the courtyard, and Gufuu stared in distaste between the mirror and a line of his own blood, slowly evaporating as it ran over the back the hand he held before him.

He waved – the spirit's eyes widened in rage and his lips opened to snarl, but before he could the mist of ebony was shredded by the winds and its pieces carried far away.

"You. I'm tired of you… most of all." Gufuu muttered, threading the clean hand through his hair before turning back to Link, fingers still tangled, and baring his fangs in a grin. Link tensed up and went for his sword while Gufuu drifted forward, and Demon's wings flashed out behind them.

"Relax, I didn't forget what you just did to my face…" The wind demon muttered, moving close enough to touch Link's forehead with his other hand. For whatever reason, Demon relaxed after looking into his eyes. Link wasn't so trusting, and stayed tense and confused as Gufuu leaned forward and pressed dry lips to the crown of his head. "My hero." He acknowledged, tilting Link's chin up with his fingers. "Call on me, and I shall answer." He pledged, unwavering red to fickle moonlight's blue.

"… Why?" Link muttered, staring at him like he'd lost his head, and really he just almost had.

Gufuu twisted his lips; there was more of an enigma at work than he'd care to admit. "You are a worthy successor to my old ally." He settled on, "So just take it without thinking too hard about it, won't you? It's not like I ever had anything against you personally. Different sides of the fence, you know…" Gufuu let go of his chin to gesture, and bits of sun fell through it.

"You're fading." Link mumbled, and were those dread and horror in his eyes?

Gufuu laughed at him and patted his cheek while his eyes flashed to Demon. "You still haven't told him." He murmured, before his body fell to dust.

"I haven't." Demon answered as the ashes scattered on the winds. Somehow, Link didn't think he was planning on it, still.

"Is he… dead?" He muttered, staring in disbelief and sagging against the guardian's chest. He barely resisted the urge to add 'again', though he knew he'd definitely killed him. A red eye peered down at him, owlish, but the long fringe of white hair still hid the other from his view. Pity.

"He's just sleeping." Demon assured, "You didn't kill the body." Yes, Link had, so either Demon was losing his mind or there was a different body he didn't see here. "You did well," Demon added, eyes glowing with a sweet smile, and Link almost blushed. Almost.

"… thanks." He mumbled, eyes slipping shut a moment. _Fuck. _"… 'm tired. Can I… can I head home or do you need help… you know…" He pushed off of Demon, gesturing awkwardly to the long shallow gashes and scorch marks marring his body.

Demon gave him a gentle smile. Far gentler than he was used to. "No, it's fine. Go ahead. I have something left to take care of." He comforted, canting his head. So Link nodded and ran off.

Demon's lips twitched before the smile faded, and his eyes burned as he turned them to the steps half-hidden behind the tower and the hedges, between where the walls should meet.

* * *

><p>As soon as Link was gone, Demon skulked upstairs. There, leaning against the wall of the main building, was the person he was looking for. Tan lips drew back in a snarl.<p>

"Kind of a harsh tutorial boss, don't you think?" He hissed, and red-brown eyes flicked up to meet him. A smirk twitched on just-as-tan lips.

"He's the hero. He'll learn to deal." The man cocked his head, observing Demon in silence for a few moments, then said thoughtfully, "I can't imagine what it's like to be afraid of yourself." And only seemed amused by the fist that slammed into the wall beside his face for it.

"Be. Quiet." Demon muttered, teeth bared, ignoring the feel of blood dripping down his knuckles.

The amusement didn't fade.

"_What the hell are you doing, Sheik?_" Demon seethed, wings flaring, and Sheik snorted in disinterest. He pushed off the wall and cocked his hip, giving Demon an insufferably dull stare, like he was being obtuse on purpose.

As if.

"I'm playing with the hero, of course." He murmured, "Seeing if he's really ready. And I'm starting to worry he isn't." His eyes narrowed and he stepped into Demon's space. Demon seethed, but didn't lash out. Sheik continued in a neutral murmur. "He isn't ready. How would you like it if he was cut down, hmm?" He tilted his head, half-lidded eyes peering into Demon's bright red ones. "I can tell you're growing fond of him. Perhaps… too fond?"

Demon refused to recoil. "He won't be cut down." He glared back at the human. "Don't think I don't know about how you've been manipulating this from behind the scenes. So mind yourself, and don't pull a stunt like this again."

"Or what?" Sheik wondered, the semi-sweet expression dropping away at last.

"I think you know the answer." Demon promised, hell in his eyes, while his fingers clenched against the wall.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter end<strong>

**Always have faith in the author, people~ always. That enough of an answer for you, arrowriver? *demonic grin***


	11. After forever

Ahh... it's been like a year and a quarter. Hi there! The plot is being heavily rewritten for a better story over all, but here, have some halloween goodness that somehow is still tied into what I was doing the July before last~...

Note: Some Tales of the Abyss characters were borrowed for this chapter.

Note 2: cover for the story is in the works. It shall be done eventually.

**Thank you to all of my lovely reviewers, old and new. It makes me smile every time I read your kind words, and it helps me keep going to know that you enjoy the story. Seriously, you guys feeds authors... kudos to you. :3**

**And HAPPY HALLOWEEN... have some nightmare fuel, on the house.**

**Chapter 11: … are the will of a fate that ties us**

* * *

><p>"<em>You have to enlist the help of the guardians by defeating the monsters who plague them. In return, you will vanquish the evil from our realm, o' hero."<em>

Vilink looked up and nodded, a glow of fire alight in his eyes. And though he was still sluggish from his long sleep, he clenched his sword before him to be ready. The other fairy gave a relieved smile. "Good! Now… the temple is through here. but be careful…"

"Try not to die." The sheikah who'd been following him on and off since the forest corrected, "It would be unfortunate if my charge was left unrescued."

Vilink looked to her, grave-faced, and the fairy drifted away from them. "The temple of light is plagued by crows… chase them out, and let the light in."

When he reached the center, he found not a monster, but the effigy of a god under the rays of sun…

* * *

><p>The news was on again. The building that had caught on fire and collapsed due to structural failures had been completely excavated. The host of the dinner, Lord Onox, was confirmed dead, crushed by falling rubble…<p>

Meanwhile, some of Navi's family had called to check in on her and Link, the ones in Baticul… the whole news mess was spreading through the city like wildfire…

* * *

><p>Gufuu was on his side. Gufuu… was on his side.<p>

No matter how many times he thought it, the words seemed foreign and weird, somehow. It was _Gufuu. _Enemy to hylians. The great Wind Tyrant. The should-be-dead sorcerer of yore.

… and he'd pledged allegiance to Link. What in Farore's name was happening anymore?

He wasn't paid enough to deal with this crap. (And by that he meant he wasn't paid at all. … Damn heroing business.)

He was startled out of his half-awake daydream when his phone went off – a tinny rendition of something Navi called 'Saria's song' – staring at the blue glow of the screen in bewilderment. Zelda's name and face appeared in glorious low-res pixels a moment after.

He grabbed the phone off his nightstand and flipped it open. "Hey?"

"Link!" He winced and held the phone away from his ear.

"Hi Zelda. Remember that thing we talked about?" He half-whimpered, dropping the phone on the pillow to rub his abused ear gently. "Ow…"

"Sorry." She apologized, and continued in a slightly calmer voice, "Vaati's wing broke."

His heart skipped a beat. _Vaati. _"He… what? How?" He asked, praying inside that it somehow couldn't be because of him, even if Vaati was kind of an asshole.

"He fell off a tower. Well… he said he did, but I… can't help but wonder if he was pushed." Zelda's voice had a sour note to it, "But it's Vaati, so I dunno why he wouldn't _tell _us…"

"When is he going to see a doctor?"

"Now. We're at the hospital in the next town. Everything's going to be fine." A pause. "… are you alright, Link?"

He grimaced. "Of course! I mean… why wouldn't I be?"

"You've been getting injured a lot, too." Zelda intoned, voice unreadable. Link stalled and stared at the phone in his hand. A lump settled in his throat.

He adjusted himself and pushed some hair out of his face. "We… need to talk." He muttered, dreading.

"I'd like that." Zelda said, voice still unnervingly inexpressive. "Tomorrow?"

"… alright." He hung up.

* * *

><p>True to form, Zelda caught him before he was ready. He was halfway to the sword school when he heard her voice.<p>

"So what's wrong with you, Link?" He jumped. When he turned around, Zelda was perched on the wall lining the street behind him, like a songbird or a crow watching the world pass by. She canted her head and furthered the image while he forced himself to turn and walk closer. "I called Kers." She told him, "And he said if we come in today he'll tan our hides." Link shuddered, "So we have time to talk."

… ah…

"Alright." Link mumbled, "But can we go somewhere more private than here, please?" Zelda nodded and hopped down from the wall.

Heart full of dread, Link counted down the seconds.

They ended up on the edge of town, on an old playground they'd run away to as children. It was overgrown and built for deku scrubs, though it had slides and swings just like one for hylian kids. Zelda perched herself on a swing while Link tucked himself beneath the slide, pulling his knees to his chest and resting his head there.

She gave him a look to indicate he'd better start talking. So he did.

"Alright, Zelda, here's the thing. I know you already told me about this and it's gonna seem crazy, but there was a demon guarding the mastersword, and I did make a deal with him. He said something about me being the new hero and he keeps showing up and making me fight these _things _that've been appearing and…" He sighed, watching how Zelda's face refused to change. "… and you think I'm crazy, don't you?"

"Just keep telling the story, Link."

"Alright. Well, the stupid sword does this thing where it turns me into a girl and makes me fight these weird monsters – you remember the Wind Tyrant Gufuu? He's still alive. And I had to _fight him!_" He barely kept his tone in the 'masculine' range, "And Demon's a smug bastard about it all, of course, I mean he's getting better but… ugh. And the sword… that thing causes problems like you wouldn't believe." He paused again, giving her a scrutinizing look.

"That wasn't a very satisfying end to the story." Was all she offered. Link swore and pouted at her.

_That's because the end hasn't happened yet. _"You don't believe me. You didn't before." He sat with one cheek squished to his kneecap, an uncomfortable position he felt too petulant to bother adjusting.

"That's not what I said," Zelda shook her head, then started in with a crooning voice, "And I do believe you." For the first time before him, today, emotion appeared on her face, a shimmering sincerity in her eyes and voice so strong it made him startle and jump.

"You… do? But…" He peered closer at her, "… Why?"

Hands folded in her lap, Zelda looked prim and proper; a little lady. "After some time and thinking, I reconsidered my judgment." Yeah… Link was calling bullshit.

"Mmhmm. That's not it. Why-" He was cut off by something utterly insane, as usual. Reaaally getting tired of that, he was… yep.

"Link~ we have things to do~!" Even though he kind of did expect it, he almost hit his head trying to leap up from under the slide. Demon trotted into view, looking excitable and a little harried. He had the mastersword in hand, and he was right in front of Zelda, in all his wings-and-hellfire glory.

_What the hell, Demon?_

"Come on come on!" The man exclaimed, running over and hauling him out from underneath the slide. Link grunted and crashed into his chest, grabbing his shoulders for balance and giving him a dirty look. Demon grinned beneath the bandages. "Oh, hero~…!" Demon laughed, "You can pronounce your undying love for me later, Link; we've got work to do!" He repeated happily, regardless of the disbelieving look he was given.

"I have school tomorrow." Link replied, pushing off of the lunatic's chest.

"Then we'd better hurry." The – and Link really wanted to emphasize this – _ancient and wise __**guardian of the mastersword **_rebutted happily, and refused to release him.

_Farore damn it._

Zelda coughed from where she was standing by the swing set. As predicted, Demon and Link's heads both swiveled to face her like she'd just witnessed a dirty secret.

"… Hi Zelda." Demon shuffled his wings and feet.

"Hi… Demon." Zelda was trying very hard not to _laugh_. Her gaze lingered on him a moment before switching to Link. "Something I should know about?"

"… no." The return was slow while he considered Zelda's nonchalance. _Ah, yes. _His face screwed up in irritation. "You know Demon." Link muttered.

"… yes?"

"You know Demon."

"I… yes, Link, I know Demon."

"You _didn't _believe me!" He accused, "First you had to ask _him!_"

Zelda laughed and threw up her hands. "I'm sorry?"

"No!" Link shouted, pointing at her. "I'm mad at you!" With that yelped out like an injured dog, he threw his hands in the air, pouted, and turned to Demon. "We're leaving!"

"We are? Great!" And Demon trotted along after him happily, waving to Zelda. "Bye! Do your homework!"

She shook her head as they went (and flashed Demon the middle finger…). "Boys…" She muttered, before flipping open her phone and hitting speed dial. "Hey, auntie? It's me…"

* * *

><p>"Now what's got you all excited?" Link grumbled, tossing items in his pack. Demon grinned and tossed him a potion like he'd drunk the other day… same strange color and all. <em>Huh. I guess Kafei gave him one, too…<em>

"The dark temple's woken up." He all but crooned it, caressing the ocarina like his cherished pet.

"The what?" Link deadpanned, dread starting to bubble up in his gut. Demon sighed as if in bliss.

"The first temple on the journey, oh hero~ oh, the history within its hallowed walls…" His tone switched from reverent to sardonic in an instant, far too amused, "Or they were hallowed, anyway. I imagine after all this time it's more like…" He let out a gusty sigh, "Ivy trails the walls and scales the ceiling, the beautiful glass of the legendary windows are now shattered on the floor. And though the sun shines high above, no light is allowed to stream in. A mire of fog and darkness constantly pervades the air around the place… it used to be different, mind you." He smiled at Link, a sinister thing that was meant as much to seduce as it was to unsettle. Blegh.

"Back 'then'… There, before the realm of darkness, there was a place of amber and gold, beauty and light given _form._ But all that was destroyed years ago and covered by darkness, as the moon eclipses the sun. Such a shame." And then, after all that majesty, he waved it off like it was nothing.

Link stared as though he were mad. "… You're nuts." … and perhaps Demon was getting to know him too well if he could guess with such accuracy exactly what the boy was thinking. Link snorted and looked up at the sky while Demon continued to watch him, expression melted back to something neutral beneath the bandages.

"Perhaps." He conceded softly, "But that makes you just as mad for following me."

Link snorted and looked away, an anger-born flush melting over his cheeks. Minutes ticked by in almost-silence while they walked, before soft words tripped and trickled from Link's lips, almost lost under the hum of the natural world, and the low voice of a fairy – "Just because you're crazy doesn't mean you're wrong."

Demon's lips curled in a grin. Falling back to walk beside Link instead of before him – and earning a strange look as a result - he gave his wings a leisurely stretch and didn't bother pulling them completely back again, instead fanning them out – the left one curved around Link protectively, and though he gave it a flat glance he didn't say anything. No histrionics. Progress.

"You know," Demon started, an easy-going grin lighting up his face while he tilted his head towards the sky, and towering treetops ahead, "I never did get to ask you, but back… way back at Gufuu's tower, when you fought him for the first time, how did you figure out throwing the orb would make his spell reject?"

"Hm?" Link stumbled over his own feet. "Sorry, I - … that?" Blue eyes narrowed and widened in quick succession, zeroing in on Demon's face. An awkward laugh bubbled up in Link's throat, to the great curiosity of the guardian beside him. "Sorry, I… uh, how to put it…" He sighed, while Demon's inquiring expression grew more urging. Link coughed, " I… didn't."

It took a moment to sink in.

"You… didn't." Demon repeated numbly, perhaps looking for a joke that wasn't there. Obviously, he came up short.

But a nod was confirmation enough… Link hoped.

"You just… assumed the spells were the same power." Demon added, sounding a bit thrown.

"Yup."

"… you idiot."

"Hey! It might've been stupid but I didn't have much choice. And I was _right._"

"You lunatic."

"Now you're just stating the obvious." Link huffed and crossed his arms. Demon smirked and patted him on the head. He could let that go for the moment, he supposed…

A few hours of walking later – and Link could begin to make out, through the heavy mist the region's woodlands got in this season, the top spires of a tall and jagged structure - Demon started to hum something, then moved on to singing softly under his breath.

"What's that?" Link wondered after he seemed to finish the last bar, walking face turned up with a peaceful expression, but eyes closed. Walking. How on earth was he… oh, come on Demon. Hit a tree. _Hit the tree._

He didn't hit the tree, that jerk.

Red eyes cracked open and slid to regard him. "Hm? Oh… well, I was just thinking of one of the other guardians."

"There are others?" Link demanded, eyebrows flying up in surprise. Demon nodded. "Weird – I figured it'd be just you." It took a moment before a suspicious glare was leveled on him, "They're not going to appear in the weirdest of places to make me wield the mastersword, right?"

"What? No." That'd be silly. Across the woods, they heard a flock of crows cry out as one, and then take off over the forest. Their wingbeats and hazy silhouettes in the mist looked rather ominous… after all, weren't crows death-bringers…? _(Not quite. More like psychopomps.) _"There are guardians for each temple. I met them all when I was sealed inside the temple of time with the mastersword."

Link blinked. "… They must be pretty old then, if they're still alive." Demon made a face at him.

"Kers and Sanguine guard the temple of time." He went on half-haughtily, pride clearly insulted, but apparently not enough to squander what he likely thought would be rare curiosity to learn. Oh, if only he knew…

"Oh. Well, that explains a lot."

For that, he got very blank look. Like, a remarkable one. Ditto would be jealous.

"… It does?"

"Yup. They're scary as hell, and so are you. Now I know why." _Well, you're scary when you want to be, at any rate…_

Demon continued to stare. "… what?" Link shifted, reaching for the sword strapped to his back out of reflex.

"You're scared of Kers and Sanguine? But you're the hero… the means you got Farore's courage…" Demon canted his head and made a face. Link, determined not to be the mature one between a thousand-plus-year-old temple guard and a high school student, made another face right back.

"From what that Impa lady said," An amused noise, possibly at his choice of address, "I'm not even the 'real' hero."

"Sword picked you." Demon corrected happily. A narrowing of blue eyes in warning, and Link went on.

"And being scared of them doesn't make me a coward. Courage isn't having no fear at all."

"Oh?" Demon gave him an expectant look. Link shook his head, but refused to finish explaining. "We should hurry up. It's getting late."

When they emerged from the mist, it was to see steps… of course, steeped in more mist. More. Goddamn. Mist.

Link was really tired of this fairytale bullshit.

"Alright, let's go." He sighed, but Demon lingered at the bottom of the steps, eyes flickering.

"… I don't think that's a good idea, Link." He said quietly. Link paused about five steps up, and frowned at him.

"Why not? We're running on a clock."

"Because it's getting dark, and the creatures inside feed on shadow. We should go inside in the morning, when their powers will grow weaker, instead of now when they'll only grow stronger by the hour."

Link continued to frown. Demon blinked and tucked his wings down, making good use of his position on the ground to pull up his shoulder, duck down his head, and make himself look as sweet, submissive and _pitiable _as possible. "Please?" He implored softly, and even though Link knew _damn well _Demon was the furthest creature in this forest from delicate and helpless he found himself stomping back down the stairs to make sure nothing happened to the jerk. He held in a sigh.

_Damn it._ "Fine." He mumbled, watching Demon perk up, and he tried to decide if that annoyed him or made him want to smile. He was tired from all the walking anyway. "So what are we doing now, then?"

"We should set up camp. I brought a pack because I figured this would happen." Demon replied, wings springing up again, and turned on his heel to all-but bounce off. (Oh, who was Link kidding. The guy who he'd admitted could scare him earlier was prancing like a deer in a Disney film. Damnit!)

"… where?"

"Magic pouch." He patted his hip. Link frowned and followed behind him, hands behind his head while he peered around the misty forest. A colonnade of half-crumbled pillars (technically, it would be called a portico here…. goddesses he was a nerd) holding up an overhang of stone that melted into the mist with color and design, over an old building that Link supposed might've once been a storage shed, albeit a very rich one.

"This is a gate house. The clergy who watched over the basilica were trained in sword arts. Of course, now it's abandoned." Demon told him, running his hand over the side of the stone entrance as he drifted in. Link noticed the arch seemed well-wide enough to accommodate Demon's wings without him having to squeeze. Perhaps it was another place made by demons… the architecture reminded him of the temple of time, a little, but also of pictures of old Baticul… then again, this wasn't far from there, so that made sense. "There are monster wards still working in here. The darkness from the temple hasn't seeped this far, yet." And that apparently pleased him. Well, it made sense. Sleeping at night without worry about wallmasters was nice. Link sighed and dropped to the ground once the picky Demon found a room that was up to standard. The place was abandoned, what did he expect? Room service?

(No, but being right near the toilet was nice.)

"Alright, why do I keep hearing about darkness?" Link asked, reaching up to rub his temples. Demon blinked at him.

"… I'm kind of surprised I have to explain this. You're a hylian."

"Fuck you." Link mumbled, moving on to rubbing his eyes. "Just tell me already."

Demon closed his mouth, swallowing his next remark _("Is that an invitation?"_) and cocked his head, apparently considering. Or, knowing him, calculating. "… Alright. You understand that there are different forms of magic."

"I do. Basic forms are fire, water, wind, and earth. Electricity, ice, sand or metal, and plant-based, and in theory infinite other variations, also exist. Arcane forms are light and dark manipulation, and matter and energy manipulation, inversed types. There's also time manipulation but that's only in theory." He recited, sighing. His ears twitched while Demon whistled.

"That's… one way to put it, yeah."

"Summer remedial courses." Link offered as his only explanation, hand still over his face. "So what's with all the doom and gloom hoodoo talk?"

"Well, you understand arcane magic is pretty much the best, right?"

"Mmmhm."

"Alright. Well, dark magic usually overlaps with spatial manipulation, while light overlaps with energy. So for offensive abilities, sans a few exceptions, dark magic is the way to go."

Demon stopped and took a _very _deep breath. Link tried to keep his eye roll within the realm of subtlety.

"So, since dark magic's basically the powerhouse of offensive magic, most battlemages and warlords and who-the-hell-ever's hungry for power seek to learn it. And since it's such a difficult discipline, requiring years of study, they usually are only really proficient with that and maybe one other class of magic. That's what made Gufuu so formidable; he was a natural mage who worked to combine those natural abilities with wind with dark magic, and created a new subset of spells because of it. They're pretty rare to come across and devastating at full power. We're lucky he never pulled them on us."

"No kidding." Link mumbled, hand slipping down his face. "So back to the darkness thing. You're saying that the reason you keep mentioning darkness is because someone's fucking with the temples?"

"Basically."

"Most likely a power hungry bastard."

"You're good at this." The guardian complimented, to which Link sighed and slumped.

"Yeah, well, who else would bother?"

"Anarchist terrorists?" The look he got for that wasn't amused, but more like Link was trying to figure out where he learned a word like 'anarchist'. "… Right. So I'll come out and say that I really don't know who's doing this."

"Maybe Gufuu would?" Link pondered, thanking him when Demon tossed him a sleeping bag. "… How's that work, anyway?"

"I doubt it. This?" Demon blinked and pointed to the bag. "Sheikah ward. It's connected to a pocket dimension so anything you can fit in the bag, you can carry. In theory. Even pocket dimensions run out of space."

Link blinked and leaned forward. "Where is it?" He wondered. Demon looked further bewildered.

"The pocket?" Red eyes blinked at Link only nodding. "… the Dark world. You want me to just tell you everything?" He started to chuckle when Link perked like a puppy offered a bone.

"Please?"

"Alright. We~ell…"

* * *

><p>And, far away from the Basilica, many hours before (ten miles east of it, on the edge of Baticul) a pair of friends were preparing to set out for that selfsame temple, unaware of the hero and demon to soon be sheltered just beyond its walls…<p>

One was a demon tasked with guarding a temple… and the other was the second treasure he guarded.

"Melon-jelly is a weird flavor." Oh, the things they greeted each other with. They could get pretty funny this early in the morning. Or, Guy thought so anyway.

"You're a weird flavor," He replied cheerfully, just to see the interesting color his friend would turn.

He was not disappointed. What a brilliant shade… "You- wha – _shut up! _You're so weird…" Luke groaned and clutched his head, shaking it a little.

The first raised an eyebrow. "Headache?" He wondered, hands coming up to steady him. Guy had known Luke for a very long time… and between the four year age difference and Luke's natural brand of naivety, well, watching out for him had become something like second nature. He tended to flaunt that rather than the demonic half of his nature. Luke was the spoiled, sheltered heir of Baticul and stood out like a sore thumb with that blood-bright royal red hair... Guy was his long time friend/babysitter/guard and kinda wanted to strangle him some days.

Their life was pretty ordinary, though, Guy had the nervous notion that that would change soon.

"No." The younger mumbled, then peered out at him from behind his fingers. "Just trying to comprehend what's going on in that big over-muscled head of yours…"

"Well, stop trying, because I've been doing that for years and I haven't figured it out." He said cheerfully, sipping his drink again now that he knew all was well.

A groan. "You're weird, Guy…"

"And you're a dork, but I love you anyway." He crooned, and was reward by another blush and a punch on the arm. "Ouch, Luke! Careful, I'm drinking~!"

"I hate you!" Luke thumped his practice sword on the ground and whined like a puppy. "Ugh… so where're we going at ungodly AM, anyway?"

"You're the one who wanted to come," Guy reminded gently, to which Luke told him to shut up again. He laughed. "Okay, okay. But you should know ten in the morning isn't 'ungodly' to most people. We're heading down to Nox Avis."

"Where?" Luke blinked at him, completely clueless.

"… the big abandoned temple." Guy settled on, allowing Luke to steal his drink, and using the now free hand to rub the back of his head.

"We're going to the marsh?" Luke sipped what he himself had deemed to be strangely flavored drink, and had no complaints. (Which was good, because if he'd complained Guy was going to pick at him mercilessly about it.)

"Other temple, Luke."

"… oh." Luke frowned. "What do you need there? Not more demon seal training, right…?" He eyed his friend up like he was expecting him to whip out the spell card right then. Guy cringed.

"No, no. Tear would kill me if I tried going without her or Natalia." He grimaced. "Possibly with a jigsaw. Last week she threatened using a jigsaw." Tear was younger than both of them, somehow managed to look older, and had a penchant for shiny little knives not unlike the ones Ghirahim of Legend used… she also had a temper like Ghirahim of Legend… While Guy was pretty sure he was her hero, she slapped the shit out of him whenever he brought it up and turned the color of Luke's hair.

Natalia was Luke's cousin… and pushy, loud, demanding, sweethearted idealist of a fiancé. Tradition died harder than a cockroach in these parts.

Well. You could call Baticul the boonies, if you wanted to make a hillbilly joke. You could also just impale yourself on a guard's lance and save them the trouble.

Luke stuck his tongue out. "Good. 'Cause you're an idiot if you try that." Hardly. He'd survived the training fine before.

He supposed that was Luke's way of saying 'I worry about you'. What a cute kid… "Yeah, love you too. Getting called an idiot by you… I must really be losing it…" He shook his head and sighed, then laughed when Luke punched him again.

"So what do you need to do there, if not demon seal training?" Luke wondered, putting his hands behind his head. (Demon seal training, as one must be curious about now, was something that, hopefully, Demon himself would never learn about. The brawling with Kers was enough of a nightmare to contend with.) Guy smiled a secret smile – more like a cat's smirk – and tilted his head back and to the side, eyes half-lidded.

"Mm~… you'll see." Luke of course, had always been innocent to the danger in that look. Maybe that was why it was okay to show him that Guy wasn't really as benign as he played at.

* * *

><p>"… This place is creepier than I remembered…" Luke mumbled, and Guy didn't blame him for walking closer than usual. He slowed just enough to bump his shoulder to Luke's.<p>

"No kidding. Gotta love the rainy season, huh?" He chuckled, sharp eyes scanning the trees. No sign of monsters…

"Oh, yeah. Love." Luke's voice was getting awfully high.

Guy grinned. "Hmm~? You're not _scared, _are you Luke?" It was just a routine check. Nothing much to worry about… or he wouldn't have brought Luke. Sure, he could handle himself… but dragging him into yet another mess involving some power-grabbing lunatics wasn't on the agenda. That was a worst-case scenario, and Guy wasn't looking forward to the trip to the Temple of Time over it. Kers looked like a woman and scared the shit out of him even when he wasn't one. Sanguine was… well. Kind of the definition of a murderous psychopath when he was mad.

Actually… it really wouldn't surprise Guy a bit if they got to the temple and it was just Sanguine corrupting everything for shits and giggles. He was even willing to bet he could find a like happening in a history book. Those two were old…

Luke was denying that he could ever be scared by something like atmosphere. Then a wolf barked in the distance and he tried to climb Guy like a tree.

Guy laughed his ass off, subtlety left behind with Luke's manhood. "Sure, sure!"

Luke spat at him like an offended cat and jumped away. His ears were red. Guy smiled at his back, half-nostalgic, and carried on. He ran his fingers over the hilt of his sword absently. "… I was expecting more monsters than this. Guess they all took off, too…" That was bad. That was very bad… maybe he should tell Luke to go back?... no, they were worse off separated…

Luke frowned and came up beside him, looking at him sidelong. "What? Why would they do something like that?"

"Because," Guy murmured, fingering the katana at his hip with an edge of anticipation, "Something bad woke up, and they don't want to get caught up in what's going to happen to this forest."

"And… what's that, exactly?" Luke wondered, bright green eyes fixed on Guy's narrowed ones. A grim look was returned for his troubles.

"I don't know." Guy admitted, fingertips lingering on the cross guard of his sword, now. "And I'm not very happy about that... we can't get caught off guard from here on out."

"Got it." Luke nodded, hand on the grip of his own blade. They passed under a gate that appeared from the mist as a ghost and faded behind them as quickly, lost in the white-flooded ether.

* * *

><p>The mist wasn't eternal, but it seemed omnipresent as it swallowed everything. Shadows danced inside the shredded clouds, clinging intimate as lovers to the skin of demons who slipped through the night.<p>

Luke's bright-white coat all-but glowed under the mist and moonlight, almost obscene beside the dark greens and subdued blues Guy had traded his usual orange and white for. With a knife in hand and a hood on his head, he could've passed for a woodland devil.

As it was, he still looked more like a violent earth-spirit than Luke's best friend, especially with that eerily grim look on his face.

"Is that Tear's?" Luke mumbled half under his breath, twisting to look around a tree. The tops of the temple spires were poking from the tops of the mist and what Luke _thought _were trees.

"She leant me some when I told her where I was going." Guy mumbled back, eyes fixed on a rather stupid looking (and disgustingly large) chuchu slugging its way up and down the steps leading up to the grounds. That had to make the stairs slippery…

"How come you didn't bring her?" Luke wondered, almost despite himself.

Guy frowned and pulled back to lean against the tree with him. "She can't."

Luke stared. "… why not?"

"Only swordsmen are allowed here. Throwing knives isn't really the same thing…" He grinned at Luke's dumbfounded stare.

"… but that's _stupid. _And who's gonna enforce it?" He whispered. Guy snickered.

"We are, of course. Anyway, no reason to needlessly provoke spirits. Between us we'll have this cleaned up in no time, right?"

"... yeah, you're right." Unsurprisingly, he still looked uneasy. Guy bumped his hip to Luke's this time.

"What? Worried we don't have a healer? You'll just have to try not to get hit, Luke.~" He grinned. Guy was a quick bastard who seemed to dance around blows. (Except when he didn't and Natalia muttered 'I-told-you-so's' while Luke patched him, because Guy would make his injuries worse trying to escape if she did the work herself.)

While Luke just… wasn't. Yeah… He sighed. "Yeah, I guess so. Ready?"

"Mhm. Let's try to avoid the slime."

"Alright. One, two…"

* * *

><p>"Drip, drop, drip, drop~…"<p>

"… Majora… it's one A.M. Why are you singing?"

"Hehehehe… Kafei, look."

Static on a screen. Adjust the antennae. Kishin had said they should get a new one. A news feed filters through…

A man's voice…

"… kness that consumes everything and flames that… shhzzzreduce to ssshhkkkash…"

"The temple of light has been desecrated by fire. Hehehe… night of the first day~… sixty hours remain."

"Majora, don't…"

"It's already started. I can't well stop it."

* * *

><p>"… how long have we been out here?" Luke wondered, staring up at the sky in confusion. The forest's blight of mist and cloud hid the sky. It was all rather quaint and doom-y. God, Luke hated doom-skies.<p>

Guy concurred. "… no clue." He glanced at a watch hung at his hip, and was disturbed to note that the numbers had changed.

_60 hours remain._

"Luke…" He smiled when the redhead looked up, and reassured, "Um… this section of woods? An hour…" Though they'd be out of the city far longer… "We'll be done soon."

"… I'm not a kid, Guy. You don't have to comfort me." Luke pouted and turned away. Guy patted his back and laughed, shaking his head.

"Right, right. Sorry. Just… I forget sometimes, y'know? Whenever I look at you…" He moved to examine a puzzle on the outer wall of the sanctuary, "I remember trying to convince you off the roof and out of the trees, or to put on clothes instead of running around naked after a bath-" At this point, Luke was about as red as his hair, and Guy was three-fourths of the way through the puzzle. He laughed. "Man, one time, you even got-"

"_OH MY GOD_, SHUT UP." Luke whined, covering his ears and looking like he might cry and squirm if Guy prodded a little more. This totally had to be what embarrassing parents felt day-to-day.

Guy grinned and pushed the finished puzzle in, cueing the loud, ominous grinding of gears to start. "As you wish, _Master_ Luke…"

That ominous groaning, of course, only went unheard by the only benign things in the forest. The pair from Baticul probably should have remembered that.

* * *

><p>There was something very girlish shrieking at about one AM that roused Demon right the hell out of his bed. While he looked around, fingers slipping down to find and wield a dagger, the sound died down and a very irritable looking Link appeared in the entrance of the gatehouse with his pillow in hand.<p>

"If you even think," He began softly, eyes burning, "Of suggesting that I made that scream, I will put this pillow over your face, Demon, and I will not let up until you have stopped moving. Forever." Then he added (a completely unnecessary), "It will be unpleasant."

"Oh, I have no doubts." Demon said half-lightly, relieved Link was fine and not-relieved he didn't know what was out here with them. Or who. Fuck. "And I would never _dream _of-"

Link held up the pillow in threat, and they both found it was quite effective at silencing him without touch. It didn't last long, though, that was the only complaint Link could muster.

"- And just why is it that you seem much less reluctant about killing now, exactly?" Demon asked, far too light, especially given the time and place and circumstances. Link glared.

"Because I get very irritable when my sleep is interrupted. Where's the sword?" He stomped inside.

"The mastersword? I have it, of course, but I don't see why you…"

"My sword. Gimme."

"I hardly think-"

Link's glare became one of jagged diamonds, ready to stab Demon in the face at the next protest. "_I am the one made to have ovaries. It is mine, and you are not telling me otherwise, __**Demon.**_" Something about his decidedly hellish manner and look convinced the guard to just give him the damn sword, in fact. So, um… he did. (And anyone with something to say could just hush the fuck up because fuuuuck them Demon might have been a demonic temple guard but tired fairies were _scary!_)

Link sighed and dropped his cottony-soft weapon on Demon's lap, wandering off into the woods half-dressed and dragging the sword behind him. "Back in a minute." He yawned.

Demon stared, clutching the pillow in front of his chest like a shield.

Ungodly shrieking echoed from outside.

Demon clutched tighter.

* * *

><p>Guy was not having a good evening. Their plans always went the furthest ways from right, that was nothing new, but this level of unfortunate wrong <em>was<em>! And it was wholly unpleasant in its processes.

Unsurprisingly, he and Luke had managed to get separated. It wasn't Luke's fault this time, at least – he'd grown up a lot, and for that Guy was proud of him.

But still, they'd gotten jumped by a pair of very rude ogres and they'd been forced apart by those same jerk-faced beasts between gathering their bearings and the fine, unimportant task of '_trying not to be killed'_.

While he knew Luke could take care of himself and that they'd meet up soon enough, he decided it would be his personal mission, shortly after checking up on the temple, to purge the forest of all its ogres at the earliest convenience.

But Luke wasn't used to fighting alone, and Guy knew he did better with a group at this point himself, making it imperative that they meet up first. So he started heading toward the temple door – they had agreed to wait there if it was safe…

He was wiping a splash of gooey violet blood from his face when he reached the door, so he didn't notice it at first. It was only after a few minutes on the tile that he happened to glance down… then paused to stare at the design burned into the stone.

A dark seal curling into itself. With one sixth of its design filled, and under his gaze another little tendril of inky magic slithered out and into place.

_No… _"Damn it." He hissed and shook his head, eyes narrowed like a cat's. "Sorry, Luke…" Was next muttered, with him shaking his head and gripping his katana's sheath below the crossguard.

Even this far from finished, he could recognize a mark of destruction. There wasn't time to wait anymore.

Closing his eyes, he opened his heart and opened the door.

Inside darkness was spilt like a river of blood, and mist swallowed everything as it rushed through the doorway.

* * *

><p>Luke screamed again and leapt away, arms flailing. "Goddamnit goddamn it I HATE GHOSTS!" He howled his fear and rage, diving under a low tree before rolling to his feet and running again.<p>

The apparition continued to chase him, laughing, well, hauntingly as it went (_fuck this, fuck this, I HATE the word 'haunting'-!) _and he wanted nothing more than to leap behind Guy or Tear and HIDE, damn it, but Guy and Tear weren't here!

Another glance behind him had him whimpering, because the damn thing seemed to have grown.

This was a mistake. Not that the apparition had grown, that he had looked back.

Luke very quickly found a root from one of the great ominous trees littered, just, everywhere had become enamored with his foot, and shortly the ground decided it held a like emotion to his face. "Ow!"

He scrambled and cringed in pain, reaching for his tachi and trying not to scream as the cool wash of air hit his back, then failed entirely when the apparition let out a bloodcurdling shriek of anger alongside the sound of heavy footsteps.

_Great, _he thought, _I'll either get dragged to hell by a laughing ghost or get torn to bits by an ogre. Guy, where are you? I need you right now. Please?_

And amazingly, he felt the cold leave his back and look up to see a flash of blond.

Guy had made it!

Wait… Earlier Guy was wearing a hood.

* * *

><p>Link was really getting tired of all this bullshit about fairytales, forests and ghost stories. He was over it with Gufuu's stupid redead army, and doubly so with the apparitions and banshees drifting around the woods like they owned the place.<p>

"Actually," The girl's voice chimed in his head, "Forfeited property is considered to be owned by whatever claims it. The dead go to temples, folks like us… everything else." She chuckled softly. "But now's not the time for that. Its weakness is in its chest – do you see it?"

Link did. According to some dark instinct, he whipped a hand out and grabbed it – without its magic active, the sword was so cumbersome – squeezing until the ghost screamed and the power danced red along his arm, beautiful and angry at once. He shivered and stood with back ramrod straight, watching as it flowed out, twisted around him, lanced across his chest to the center, and finished by slithering through tunic, shirt and flesh to his heart. The skin on his hand kept glowing faint red.

Then he heard a sword being drawn, and turned around. His resulting dumbfounded look was shared by the redhead on the forest floor.

* * *

><p>"… hi." Link greeted him casually, as though he weren't wearing shorts and a loose tunic with sleep-mussed hair while wielding a legendary weapon. And at the witching hour in the middle of a strange and ominous forest, too!<p>

"… hey." The redhead greeted back with the same slow casualness. He climbed to his feet after a moment. His coat was stained with grass and dirt. _Who wears white into the woods? _Weird city kids.

"Er- why are you out here?" They wondered at once. Luke looked suspicious after. Link just looked tired.

"Saving the world stuff," He answered first, ever the mature one (hahahaha RIGHT).

Luke stared a moment in disbelief, then laughed and held out a hand. "Oh, you too? Great. Name's Luke." Huh. Well that didn't stir any memories at all. Not relevant ones.

"Link. Nice to meet you." Link shook the offered hand. "So… I gotta get back to my friend, but… I feel weird leaving you out here?"

"I didn't come out alone." Luke looked around, pointed pout forming. Link guessed he made that face a _lot. _"But we got separated and now I've gotta find Guy…"

Guy. Okay so maybe they were relevant? Whoops~. Link grinned. "Oh, wait, I know who you are. Yeah, don't worry about it, come on."

Luke stared at him funny the whole way back.

* * *

><p>Shivers ran through Demon's wings as he walked the length of the gatehouse.<p>

Dark magic – sour, strong, _hungriness - _emanated from the temple behind him, and it took all his power not to either leap into its midst, or hunt down Zelda and Link to hide them.

Fuck… what on earth was going on in there?

He wished for the moon. He thought he'd feel better if he could see his beloved beacon, but it was forced back by the wicked clouds and dark. He wished for the god of gales to clear it, but gods were fickle and no master of Kers would be likely to listen to prayers.

He wished Link would get back safe, and prayed that Sheik wasn't right and the sword wasn't wrong.

Because, really… It really sucked when your own heart betrayed you.

Shadows shifted at the gatehouse entrance, and Demon's heart stuttered with anger and nervous energy when a red-headed teenager in an abused white coat stumbled through. Not a beat after it rushed with relief - Link came walking in after the boy, sword in hand at his side.

"Hey. Sure we can't go in early? I saw the doors were opened." Link wondered, handing over the sword. Demon had the presence of mind to stash it. "Also, I had a thought. Why don't I have more emotional and physical distress post-transformation? Shouldn't the hormone switch be enough to knock me out of commission for, like, months? And probably shave years off my life with the constant stress?"

"Huh? I have no idea, it's probably fox magic or something."

"Fox magic?" Link frowned. "Why would there be fox magic on-?"

"Don't even worry about it if the doors are open we'd better go."

"Fine, fine…" Link made sure to grumble at him a moment longer though just to show that he hadn't been sidetracked and wasn't appreciative of the attempt. "Coming, Luke?"

"Yeah…" Poor Luke. He looked like he'd been dropped into the middle of the twilight zone. But, hey. The guy had jumped in just in the nick of time to save him like a cartoon superhero, why not stick around? He'd be as good as any help until they met up with Guy again. Lorelei, he missed Guy… not that he was going to mention that…

And anything beat hanging out in Creepy Woods until dawn. Blegh.

* * *

><p>Now, as it was mentioned before, one of the pair from Baticul was a demon. It was hardly the redhead, as one might have noticed… he knew nothing of what lie inside the darkness. No… the older of the two, Guy Basil, was very much the one of demonic ancestry. That was no great secret (though he hid the nature itself, he didn't contest it when it was brought up), nor was his guarding of the temple. What he'd failed to mention (thinking perhaps that it should never become an issue) was what happened when demons were submerged in corrupted magic. He had given Luke one instruction though, if that should ever come up – he had made him promise to <em>run.<em>

* * *

><p>Speaking of demons…<p>

Link was a little surprised Demon was actually… well. Staying with them at all. The temple was dark, cold and drafty… shards of glass crackled under their boots. He was willing to bet if they had a light to shine on them, they'd be colorful… the smell of dust and must was heavy on the air and turned their stomachs. Moths flitted through the dark and, rather often, flew into their faces and arms…

It was also dark enough inside the temple that the three of them were clutching shirts and coats to stay close. There was the sound, not faint or uncommon, of something skirting around the edges of the hallway, and the soft chitter of something above their heads.

Demon paused inside the next room and cast a spell.

"_... lux…"_

And light shimmered on the tips of his fingers. The little bit of the room that lit was stone with bands of colors through it.

There was a statue outlined, vague and ephemeral, in the center of the space. So they edged forward, and Demon rose up on his wings to illuminated the length of it… when he reached the face, he stared.

It was nothing but rags piled up onto darkness… the perhaps-human feature of the effigy was its arm, outstretched, with a hand peeking from the robe's folds… Finger crooked in invitation.

It was boney, pale grey, and looked more like a talon than part of a human hand. Bits of it were crumbling away and the tip of another finger was broken off entirely. There were droppings on the statue, and smears of faded paint, and a few pools of water in the folds of the cloaks from where rain had gotten in and collected.

For a moment the clouds cleared enough for the moon to shine through. It looked an angry red.

A chill ran through them head to toe, and the laughter of a ghost echoed through the darkness. Demon's light caught on faces in the dark that laughed and danced around them, fading in and out of existence, rippling, and twisting into fire and nightmares. Demon hissed as one of them rushed at him, and the light was snuffed out.

And there was nothing. And Luke and Link waited, alone, in the dark… and there was still nothing.

_57 hours remain…_

* * *

><p>After thirty minutes, they had to concede… Demon wasn't here, and he wasn't coming back. So they clutched at each other, tighter than before, knuckles white in the blackness. There was the sound of birdsong from somewhere further in, and the gentle strum of a lyre, to back the <em>shrieks <em>of ghouls in the dark and the howl of wolfos outside, the grunting and panting of ogres passing by while they pressed close to the wall, mouths covered, hearts pounding because how were they going to fight in the dark?

Another breeze shifted through the tunnel, and they ran.

The _thump! _Behind them landed, scuttled for a moment, and was followed by another breeze and another soft _thump _on the ceiling far above…

They couldn't even talk here, and they were walking blind…

Link wanted to cast a light, but so far in… they wouldn't risk the monsters it might summon.

Luke had been carrying a glowstick. The light from it was very faint, but they could hide it when it wasn't in use, and peer around corners enough to see by when it was. Link had a weird inkling, that the master sword could light the way… but he wasn't sure where it was from, and he was certain that no matter how holy the blade, its light alone couldn't drive evil away. That just wasn't how evil worked.

The whole concept of killing evil didn't make much sense, actually… if it worked then wouldn't evil be gone by now as a concept?

"Link, you've been standing there for two minutes." Luke hissed, yanking on his arm. "Come on. We've gotta find Guy." And then… what?

Demon… _I feel bad, now…_

He'd hardly been kind to Demon (thugh considering the whole 'forced into a bargain', that was to be expected. But Link was a sentimental creature, and he wasn't slow – he could see that 'find random hylian – force to use sword' wasn't just a sadistic plan, or at least, wasn't one concocted by him…

After all, Demon himself claimed he didn't care enough about the world to save it.

So there must have been something he wasn't seeing.

And he'd rather like to see it, so Demon had better be alive somewhere in this mess… though every hour crawling by them seemed to make that less likely.

The hall shook. One, two, three… the heavy thump of an ogre's footfalls echoed, and they pressed their backs to the wall and hid the light away. Link patted along it and hissed in excitement when he found a knob.

They slid through the door as the ogre stomped by, sniffing and grunting…

The door clicked shut behind them, the shift-swish-click of locks sliding shut in its wake. There was a pale silver light in this room, spilt over the floor, and somehow it seemed ominous to see just a brush of _something _after so much of nothing at all… there's a steady _drip _in this room, a puddle of something black near the doorframe.

The scent of metal permeated the air, but not rotting or must. And not dust… this room was sealed, and had been used some time shortly ago. Something moved across from the doorway. Luke went tense, and Link reached up and wrapped his hand around the handle of the mastersword…

A form rose up from the darkness and stepped closer, staggered to the light like it was almost afraid. And it was a human… hair silvery and celestial in the moonlight.

"… Guy?" Luke blinked, and a smile broke out of his face. "Guy!"

The man took another step into the light. He tilted his head back… blue eyes, cold. Pale lips, turned down. He looked like he was supposed to be expressing something but just… wasn't. Dull surprise? Like a Transformers comic.

Luke stopped where he stood and, though he was still smiling, the expression had turned uneasy.

"He's reacting to the sword," Demon's voice called to them from a rafter, and they'd only looked _up _with hopeful eyes for a moment before Guy lunged. Something hot splashed on their faces.

It dripped into their mouths – it was Demon's _blood._

Luke swore and gagged, then spat in disgust. Guy lunged at them. Link yelped, almost tripping over himself to dart away. Luke swore from the other side of the chamber. "Link! Run!"

So… he ran.

* * *

><p>Chapter end<p> 


End file.
